


The Colour Of Cartoon Sunshine

by junkshopdisco



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Awkwardness, Friends to Lovers, M/M, food based sexual fantasies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 03:33:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9639062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junkshopdisco/pseuds/junkshopdisco
Summary: As filming for the second series draws to a close, Colin thinks his biggest problem is evading one of Bradley’s goodbye hugs. It isn’t. It’s that he’s about to do something that’s fourteen different kinds of stupid: fall in love.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the for the Big Bang at merlinbb_rpf on LJ aeons ago.
> 
> Cw for some laddish banter including jokes about mental illness/suicidal thoughts/abelist terms, and some awkward working through internalised biphobia. If you want more details before proceeding hit me up on Twitter or Tumblr.

When Colin was a kid, he thought falling in love would be like falling into a vat of custard. He imagined that it would be nice and comforting, thick and supportive, sweet-smelling, delicious, and the colour of cartoon sunshine. Falling in love with Bradley is _nothing_ like falling into a vat of custard. If he had to liken it to anything, it’d be repeatedly catching the exact same part of his shin on the corner of a bed frame in the dark: every time he walks into it, he feels like an idiot for not being able to avoid it because _he knew it was there_.

It starts – well, Colin’s not exactly sure where. When they met they recognised each other immediately as _the kid I picked on at school for being a weirdo_ and _the popular boy who picked on me at school for being a weirdo_ , and that took a while to get over. Their early conversations were either the kind where Bradley tried to bond by asking far too many questions, or the kind that ended in an awkward:

‘ – erm, do you have those in Ireland?’  


‘It’s Ireland, not Mars.’  


‘Right. Sorry.’

Bradley developed a particularly puppyish frown, this sort of _I’m adorable, why don’t you like me more than you do?_ , would never, ever be satisfied with casual acquaintance, kept pushing. There was a lot of _why are you always so polite, Colin?_ , jibes about him being _a good boy_ and having done his homework. It took Colin a while to realise that Bradley was only doing that because he didn’t know quite what else to do with him. Which, actually, _was_ sort of adorable, especially when he persisted in the face of fairly massive indifference. 

There wasn’t _a_ moment where it all changed, but a series of utterly inauspicious occurrences – Bradley making him laugh by saying that sham – a mix of sheep and ham – could take off and revolutionise the mixed meat market, him making Bradley laugh when a bulb blew and saying something like, ‘Oh, the elf in the light must have died’, drunkenly deciding together one night that microwaves are actually portals to another universe where the food’s already cooked and the _ding_ noise is the sound of intergalactic space travel. Slowly, they stopped being Bradley and Colin and started being _Bradley and Colin_ , an indivisible unit, the kind of people referred to by others as peas in a pod and thick thieves. 

The only thing Colin’s certain of, when he looks back on it, is that noticing it’s happened comes long after it actually doing so, when it’s way too late to take it all back.

_______

‘You know technically that’s illegal.’  


‘Are you going to turn me in, Colin?’  


‘Maybe. If there’s a reward.’ 

Bradley’s on the bed with Colin’s laptop, and he looks up and fakes offended before carrying on burning CDs of Colin’s music, all the stuff he’s got used to hearing and now apparently can’t live without but doesn’t like enough to pay for. Colin’s laptop groans and whirs and Colin mutters something about piracy while he packs, folding the stuff he thinks is clean and leaving the rest in a tangle. 

‘What’s that one you’re always listening to about being in love with your little sister?’

Colin leans over, finds it for him, and Bradley adds it to a playlist he’s making called _Half-Inched By Bradley_.

‘Stealthy title.’  


‘I thought so. Anything you want off mine?’

Colin laughs out an incredulous _no_ , and Bradley mimes being stabbed through the heart. He adds a bunch of stuff that Colin thinks he’ll never actually listen to, and Colin shakes his head and goes over to the desk, retrieves a t shirt that’s somehow decided it lives there. He throws it at his bag, and with cobra-reflexes Bradley snatches it out of the air and tucks it under his legs. ‘I think you’ll find that’s mine,’ he says.  


‘No it’s – ’

Colin grabs the sleeve and tugs, but Bradley has an annoying propensity for becoming a deadweight. When Colin doesn’t give up Bradley bats his hand away and says, ‘Where’d you buy it, then?’  


‘I don’t know – I don’t keep track. I think it was a gift.’  


‘The kind of gift you steal when you’re drunk, you mean.’  


‘What?’  


‘You stole it from me when you had all that red wine last week. You said it didn’t do me any favours and it’d suit you better. You put it on over your hoodie to prove the point and I didn’t think it was fair to fight a drunk.’

Colin stares at him, some foggy memory half-stirring through his head. He remembers the night he had all the red wine - or to be precise, he remembers the morning _after_ he had all the red wine. He recalls with annoying clarity the forty minutes he spent puking his internal organs into the sink, and arriving on set late in a barrage of apologies, only to find that Bradley had told everyone he’d had an allergic reaction to something and wasn’t feeling well. He remembers everyone asking _are you all right Colin? Do you need to see the doctor, Colin?_ and Bradley sitting there, _knowing_ he didn’t deserve concern or any comments on what a valiant effort he was making but not saying a thing. He doesn’t remember stealing a t shirt. But it does sound like something he might do.

‘Sorry.’

Bradley rolls his eyes, digs the t shirt out from underneath him and tosses it into his face. 

‘You were right,’ he says. ‘It did look better on you. Keep it as a _thank you for the music_.’

_____

The journey home is nothing short of torturous, the train calling at absolutely fucking _everywhere_. They move through all the stages of travel misery: annoyance with the train company; anger at themselves for not checking it was a direct train; incredulity at quite how long it’s taking; and finally they come to rest in unavoidable amusement at their predicament as the train halts in a tunnel.

‘Customers please be advised that our next stop will be: _Arse End of Nowhere_ – ’  


‘Population: four men and a dog, none of whom have a railcard.’  


‘ – and we’ll also be calling at _No-one Has Lived Here Since 1850_ and _This Deserted Station That’s Actually Cobwebbed_. Please remain seated and try not to die of boredom.’  


‘I suppose at least when we arrive we’ll be able to get a discount because we’ll’ve reached pensionable age.’

Bradley laughs and Colin rests his head on the window, feeling the vibration of the train’s hum reverberate through his skull. He doesn’t actually mind it. Anything that puts off the moment where he turns his key in the lock and is back home is welcome, in a way. It was the same when they finished the first series and now it’s worse because he likes everyone so much more. It’s always strange when his life can go back to being _his life_ , and it’s all so entrenched – the routine and the conversation and the connections. His misses it, even before it’s gone.

‘You want to play a game?’ Bradley says. ‘Rock, paper, anything?’  


‘What’s that?’  


‘Rock, paper, scissors – only you can make _anything_ with your hands, and then we decide what wins and try not to let it come to blows.’  


‘Ok.’

Bradley meets his eye and mouths, _one, two, three_. Colin makes a rabbit like he would in a shadow, and Bradley makes a butterfly. 

‘Was that beginner’s luck or are you just crap at this?’ Colin says.  


‘What?’  


‘Well I win. A rabbit beats a butterfly, whichever way you look at it.’  


‘It wasn’t a _butterfly_. It was a pterodactyl.’  


‘That was _so_ not a pterodactyl.’  


‘Why would I make a butterfly? What would that beat?’

They argue for a bit about whether a butterfly would beat a moth, if the moth’d be ghetto and the butterfly would be more of a _so wait, are we hitting faces?_ pretty boy or if they’re judging by appearances and butterflies are secretly the ninjas of the aphid world, and start another round. Colin makes a lion’s head and Bradley goes with what is apparently supposed to be a forklift truck. They forget to keep score, and when they eventually arrive in London they’re both convinced they’ve won, hands down.

The station’s quiet, and they head out together, laden down with their bags. They pause at the taxi rank, and eye each other nervously. Saying goodbye is always a bit fraught. Bradley’s a hugger and Colin isn’t, and so whenever they get to a moment where Colin thinks Bradley might hug him they shift into this weird dance. Colin tries to evade the hug and tries not to be obvious about it, but in trying not to be obvious he makes it _absolutely crystal fucking clear_ what he’s doing. Bradley doesn’t know what to do instead of hug, so he gets sort of nervous about the fact that he’s making Colin nervous and neither of them really knows what to do. It normally turns into a shared, high-pitched laugh and lots of fast-talking about nothing, and on this occasion Bradley settles for punching Colin on the arm and saying _see you, mate_ , and Colin goes with an awkward wave that makes him feel like he’s five. 

As always when he’s not hugged Bradley when Bradley clearly wanted to hug him, he walks off feeling like an utter loser, and as he gets into the taxi, Colin sighs at himself because really would a hug be so bad? He gives the taxi guy his address and leans against the window. In addition to his normal _Jeez, Colin, when are you going to stop being so fucking awkward all the time_ thoughts, there’s a new one. He wishes he’d done it, hugged him, because he’s no idea when he’s going to see Bradley again, and other people seem to really enjoy hugging him so it’s probably sort of nice.

_____

Colin’s sitting in his flat listening to Sonic Youth and thumbing through a film script when his phone goes. The name on the front says _Bradley James_ and for a minute he’s too busy wondering why he added the surname when he doesn’t know any other Bradleys to click on the text. When he does it says:

  
_I’m really bored. Entertain me?_  


And Colin types:

  
_Did you mean to send this to me?_

**Bradley James:**  
_Yes. Unless you’re not Colin..?_

**Colin:**  
_Oh. OK._  


He thinks, trying to be entertaining, but he’s not, even when he’s not working through a script with a highlighter pen and listening to _Confusion Next_. So he sends Bradley a video his brother sent him of a man dressed as a unicorn falling off a treadmill, adds the words:

  
_This is hilarious._

**Bradley James:**  
_I did that once. It’s no laughing matter, Colin._

**Colin:**  
_Why did you dress like a unicorn?_

**Bradley James:**  
_Everyone experiments at drama school. Girlfriend had a thing for them. I was drunk and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Pick an excuse._  


Colin laughs and his script fans itself closed in his lap.

  
**Colin:**  
_I feel like there might be a joke in here about being horny but IDK quite what it is._

**Bradley James:**  
_If this is turning you on, you’re stranger than I thought._

**Colin:**  
_You’re the one with the kinky unicorn sex stories._

**Bradley James:**  
_I never said there was unicorn sex, kinky or otherwise._

**Colin:**  
_I don’t think it’s possible to have non-kinky unicorn sex. Unless you’re a unicorn._

**Colin:**  
_OMG, ARE you a unicorn? Is that why you always wear your fringe like that? To cover the evidence?_

**Bradley James:**  
_..._

**Bradley James:**  
_Don’t tell anyone. There’s still a lot of prejudice._  


Colin cracks up, and when his phone beeps again he’s laughing too hard to read the message straight away:

  
**Bradley James:**  
_Are you doing something, or do you want to go and see a film?_

**Colin:**  
_Sure. I’m not busy._

**Bradley James:**  
_You know the cinema on Shaftsbury Ave? Meet you there in an hour?_

**Colin:**  
_OK. See you then._  


When he pockets his phone and pulls on a bigger jumper he’s actually sort of nervous, because they don’t really hang out. Well, they do, but normally it’s at events they’re contractually obliged to be at, and they stick together because they prefer each other to everyone else and it all seems easier when they’re _Bradley and Colin_ , or it’s between takes when they chat because they’re in the same place, or it’s in hotel bars because they’re in Wales and –

Colin tells himself he’s being ridiculous, and clearly they hang out _all the fucking time_. And yes, this is sort of different because it’s not in any way work related but it’s still just Bradley. And besides, Bradley’s probably only texted him because all his actual mates are at work and so it doesn’t _mean_ anything. As he heads out the door, he’s only half-convinced.

_____

The only thing that makes Colin more nervous than saying goodbye to Bradley is saying hello to Bradley. Bradley hugs acquaintances, people he barely knows, people he’s _just met_ – and Colin’s seen him actually run at people he likes when he hasn’t seen them in a while.

And they haven’t seen each other in a while. He always tries to approach Bradley like a wild animal, something you don’t come up behind – like an alpaca – and sometimes he tries to get close without being seen and then form himself into some unhuggable position – a bag that he can somehow get between them as an _I would hug you but this bag’s in the way_ is ideal. Bradley spots him as he rounds the corner and comes over at a slight jog, the kind that other people would maybe interpret as _friendly_ and _enthusiastic_. But Colin’s not other people and so it makes him sort of flinch in anticipation of Bradley throwing himself at him. He tries to curtail it with a wave and saying _hello_ in the hope that that will suffice and Bradley won’t want to over-greet him, and it half works because Bradley settles into step next to him and bumps his shoulder.

‘What have you been doing with yourself, then, Morgan? Staying out of trouble?’ 

He looks so genuinely pleased to see him that Colin feels like a _total_ arse for going to such lengths not to hug him. 

‘When am I ever in trouble? I mean when I’m not with you, _obviously_.’

They go up the escalators through the shopping centre, Bradley leaning on the rail like he owns the place. Colin’s always envied that about him, the way he seems to feel at ease _everywhere_ , shoves his hands into the pocket on his top. When they get to the ticket office it’s pretty deserted except for sullen employees and a couple of pensioners who are flirting and giggling. Bradley gestures to the display and Colin frowns at the titles, most of which are sequels to things he hasn’t seen. 

‘I don’t know any of those – so – you pick?’

Bradley surveys the titles for a moment, buys two tickets for something with zombies in, shoos him over to the concessions stand, and orders a large popcorn. He pays for that too, and Colin looks at him and says, ‘You don’t have to pay for everything. We’re not on a date like those old codgers.’  


‘Which old – ’

Colin indicates them with a small nod of his head, and Bradley eyes them and meets his gaze. ‘Get in there, granddad,’ he says. ‘And anyway, I’m not paying for everything. You’re buying me drinks after.’

He says it like it’s a foregone conclusion, and Colin thinks that Bradley must have been really fucking bored since they finished filming if he’s _this_ starved for company.

They go in, find seats in the middle just as the trailers are starting. Watching a film with Bradley goes one of two ways – either he’s really into it and he jumps every time he’s supposed to and laughs every time he’s supposed to, or he’s out of his mind with not caring and he makes up his own story. Today it takes him ten minutes to decide it’s the latter kind of movie, and he leans in and says, ‘Do you think the vicar zombie fancies the cheerleader zombie?’  


‘That would be sort of inappropriate. She’s jailbait. And he’s supposed to be celibate. And – I mean there’s the necrophilia aspect – ’  


‘Is necrophilia always wrong?’ Colin looks at him, horrified, and Bradley rolls his eyes. ‘I mean if you’re _both_ dead is it actually necrophilia or just – you know, dead people having sex?’  


‘My education did not cover this,’ Colin says, and reaches for a handful of popcorn.

Bradley laughs, and it’s sort of too loud for a cinema but they’re the only people in there other than a gang of teenagers who are all too busy groping each other in the dark to care. Colin watches the screen for a moment, but now all he can see in the zombie vicar’s aimless, shambolic walk is a flirty stagger. ‘He definitely fancies someone,’ he says, ‘and not in a want-you-for-your-brains way.’  


‘Who’d you reckon he’s into?’  


‘The hero guy with the baseball bat, I reckon. It’s sort of a star-crossed thing.’ He pops a kernel into his mouth and adds, ‘But with necrophilia.’

Between them, they re-plot the entire thing as a romantic comedy, and when the hero takes the zombie vicar’s head off with a chainsaw they both _awww, no_. Bradley throws popcorn at him and Colin bats it out of his fringe, and while they wait for the actual movie to finish, Bradley keeps muttering about the fictional life the zombie vicar and the hero could have had if they’d been able to see past being on different sides of the alive/dead divide. By the time the credits roll he’s given them a semi-detached in Surrey next to the graveyard and a host of adopted children who’ve learnt to wear colanders on their heads to deal with their zombie dad’s brainaholism. 

When they head out, the street is darkening and full of suits and tourists, and down the road they’re setting up for a premiere of some kind. They find a pub with a slightly sticky floor and lots of dark wood, and Colin looks at him and says, ‘So what’ll you have, then?’

He orders two of the German beer Bradley gets excited about and they sit at a table in the corner. Bradley tells him literally everything he’s done since they last saw each other, spinning it all so he looks like an idiot, and Colin’s just thinking that actually hanging out with Bradley is really good fun when Bradley excuses himself and gets up. A moment later the air pings to the strains of _Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves_ , and when Bradley comes back he’s smirking. 

‘You did this?’ Colin says, pointing at the air. ‘This Cher has got you written all over it.’  


‘I might have selected some tunes, yeah.’  


‘Is this the worst of it?’  


‘Wait and see, Colin, wait and see.’

It turns out that Bradley has put on ten record in a row that Colin absolutely _hates_ , and as Bradley sits there chortling, Colin pretends to kill himself in fourteen different ways.

When they get chucked out of the pub they’re both pretty toasted on a mix of beer and the whiskey Bradley’s music selections drove him to, and so when Bradley says, ‘You want to come back to mine for a bit?’ Colin doesn’t give any thought to trains or hangovers and agrees.

They walk down the road bouncing off each other’s arms and staggering through apologies. Colin nearly topples off the kerb and Bradley grabs the arm of his top and drags him back, switching places with him so he doesn’t wander into the traffic and die. Colin mutters something about chivalry and Bradley laughs, and the sound makes Colin think that actually, he’s had a really nice day, the kind that seems like an endless stream of jokes and laughing. Sometimes he forgets in all the hugging awkwardness that actually he really likes Bradley, and it’s only when Bradley looks at him with a puzzled frown that he realises he’s let some version of that out of his mouth.

‘I just meant – thanks for inviting me, or something.’  


‘Your mum would be proud.’  


‘What?’  


‘Even when you’re shit-faced you remember your manners.’

Colin laughs and knocks his elbow against Bradley’s side, and when Bradley drops an arm around his shoulder and pulls him into a sort of half-hug, he doesn’t _actually_ mind it. 

Bradley’s flat is pretty much exactly what he expects – there’s a day’s worth of washing up in the sink, a week’s worth of newspapers on the coffee table, and a pair of socks abandoned in the middle of the kitchen floor for no apparent reason. Colin peeks into the lounge while Bradley says something about a party and that he has tequila left over. The shelves are full of DVD box sets and video games, but there are movie posters on the wall that are actually much cooler than he’d expected. The whole place feels just like Bradley, sort of easy and lived in and warm and a bit unexpected, and Colin smiles at his own thoughts because even inside his head he sounds pissed.

‘S’it lemons with tequila?’

Colin looks back, and Bradley’s kneeling in front of the fridge, rooting through the rot rack.

‘Limes.’  


‘Ok, well – I haven’t got any of those.’  


‘Lemon’s’ll do, then, I guess.’  


‘No, I mean – I haven’t got any of those either. Ooh, but – tangerines?’

He gets up, presents the string bag with a flourish, and Colin laughs and says, ‘M’okay. Where are your shot glasses?’ He opens a cupboard at random, startles when he finds there’s a dishwasher in it, struggles to close it again and jams it. ‘I think I killed it,’ he says, and Bradley waves away his concern and kicks it shut, making everything in there rattle a protest.  


‘I don’t think I’ve got any shot glasses.’  


‘What have you got?’

Bradley opens the cupboard next to the stove, surveys the contents, which looks mostly like stolen pint glasses. ‘Egg cups?’  


‘How can you not have shot glasses but you’ve got egg cups? That’s – absurd, Bradley.’  


‘You’re – absurd. Don’t be such a picky bastard.’

Bradley gets two egg cups out, fills them with tequila, and when he slices the tangerines into quarters he does it with a blatant disregard for his fingers. Against the odds – and maybe because he spends a lot of time with much bigger weapons – he doesn’t lose a digit, and he grabs the salt and says, 

‘Ready?’  


‘Not really.’

Bradley ignores him, grabs his hand and licks a rough, sloppy stripe across the back of it. Colin grimaces and actually says, ‘That’s gross,’ and Bradley ignores that too and shakes the salt over the back of his hand, liberally coating the floor. It tickles a bit and Colin grimaces, and Bradley looks at him expectantly. ‘Oh, no way. I’m not going first. It’s together or nothing.’

Hr reaches for Bradley’s hand and in retaliation draws his tongue over the fleshy part of his thumb, leaving far more saliva than would ever be necessary. Bradley naturally doesn’t care, sprinkles salt onto it and meets his gaze in challenge. Colin rolls his eyes, and says, ‘Three, two, one – ’

He licks the salt off the back of his hand, trying not to think that now he has Bradley’s saliva in his mouth, reaches for an egg cup and knocks the tequila back, bites into one of the slivers of tangerine. It takes a second for the true horror of the taste combination to manifest, and when it does he pulls his sleeve down over his hand and wipes his tongue vigorously, spluttering into it and coughing as the tequila burns the back of his throat.

When he looks up, Bradley’s eyes are watering and he’s trying to blink it back, and he says, ‘Oh my god. That’s – that’s the _worst_ thing I have ever had in my mouth.’

Colin concurs with a laugh, and Bradley says something about maybe if they tried sugar instead of salt, that maybe a little sweetness would counteract the sting-factor. Colin thinks it’s probably a bad idea, but finds himself saying, ‘Go on, then,’ and holding out his hand for sugaring anyway.

The sugar turns out to be worse than the salt and they agree that they both hate the tangerines, and that instead of persisting they should just have something else. They decide they should drown the tequila in whatever mixer they can find, and Bradley has the genius idea to make them both a pint of tequila and blackcurrant squash. It’s bearable, or maybe they’re both just too pissed to care, and they go into the lounge, Bradley muttering something about digging out _28 Days Later_.

_____

When Colin wakes up he’s curled on one of Bradley’s sofas with a cushion over his head as some kind of inadequate defence against daylight. He squints across the room and Bradley’s face down on the other sofa, his hand in a pizza that Colin has absolutely no recollection of him ordering. He moans as his headache bears down on his optic nerve, and Bradley blinks at him sleepily as if he has no idea who he is. He shifts a little so he can peer over the side of the sofa and see what his hand’s in and says, ‘D’you put that there?’  


‘I didn’t.’  


‘Hmn.’ 

He seems slightly puzzled but not actually bothered, and Colin pulls the cushion closer and says, ‘You’re a really bad influence. I can’t believe you let me get _that_ drunk.’  


‘I’m not a – ’  


‘Seriously, you tell me stories about kinky sex with unicorns, get me wasted on tequila, and show me scary movies late at night – all you’ve got to do is offer me drugs and you are literally _everything_ my mother warned me about in one place.’

Bradley throws a pizza pepper at him, and Colin ducks behind his cushion and hears it thunk pathetically and slump to the floor. He mutters about violent, bullying tendencies, so Bradley waits until he emerges and flicks a barrage of sweetcorn at him, apparently having silently assembled an arsenal while he wasn’t looking.

When they manage to attain vertical they stumble into the kitchen. The table and the counter are sparkling with salt and sugar and there are half-bitten tangerines everywhere. Bradley ignores it all and goes over to the fridge. ‘Do you know how to make a Bloody Mary, Col?’ he says.  


‘It’s vodka, tomato juice, Tabasco and – celery, I think.’  


‘Ok, well I don’t have _any_ of those things, but I could make you a coffee with a leek in? Oh. Except that I finished the coffee yesterday.’  


‘So it’s just the leek, then? And maybe half an already bitten tangerine?’ Bradley looks at him like, _yes, and?_ ‘You’re a bad influence and a really lousy host.’  


‘I suppose if I stayed at yours you’d lay on a full Continental breakfast?’  


‘I could probably manage, like, tea and toast.’

Bradley rolls his eyes, gets up and leans on the counter, yawning. His hair is sticking up but somehow it suits him, and Colin sinks next to him and feels a surge of jealousy for his ability to consume alcohol without apparently ever feeling any ill-effect.

‘Are you human?’  


‘What?’  


‘My head’s killing and you look _annoyingly_ fine.’

Bradley reaches past him, opens a drawer and tosses him a box of Neurofen, ‘Just don’t tell your mum,’ he says. ‘There’s a cafe on the corner. I’ll buy you breakfast to make up for my lack of hosting prowess.’  


‘Do I look personish? I don’t want to, like, scare small children.’

Bradley squints at him with fake appraisal, and then ruffles his hair. ‘Perfect,’ he says, and Colin’s not sure why, but it makes him laugh.

The cafe turns out to be a quaint little place with a menu of classic breakfast fodder advertised on blackboards and rebranded in what Colin hopes is ironic fashion as _The Triple Bypass Special_ and _The Coronary Sarnie_. He’s still feeling queasy, but somehow Bradley talks him into a fried egg sandwich, and they laugh about how drunk they were and rehash a conversation they had about zombie movies and whether a crazy zombie vicar is always scarier than zombie clowns. It’s actually sort of nice, spending time together without real purpose, just _being_ , and Bradley’s such easy company that as he sits there, Colin can’t remember how and why they ever didn’t get on.

Eventually, though, his day calls, and when he leaves, Colin gets a, _this was fun, you should let me influence you badly more often_ and a shoulder squeeze, and as he hunkers into his top and heads for the Tube, he wishes that Bradley had hugged him.


	2. Two

The next time they see each other, it’s a work thing. They’re turning on the Christmas lights and they stick together because –

Well, because they always do. They make jokes about zombie vicars being less frightening than a tequila tangerine hangover, and everyone looks at them like they’ve lost it. Angel asks if they want to come to her Christmas party before they all go home to do the family thing, and Bradley says _yes_ and looks at him as if it’s his invite and he’s as invested in the answer as Angel is. Colin agrees because it’s good to be asked, and then regrets it immediately when Angel starts talking about her friend Marie who she thinks he’d really like. By the time she’s finished telling him about her he feels like there’s no point meeting her because he already knows her life story, and Angel finishes with a big, eager grin and, ‘No, really, she’s not one of those crazy nurses, she’s nice – I mean not too nice. Not _over_ nice. Just _nice_ nice.’

Colin wonders when he’s given off some kind of _I like nice nice girls_ vibe, smiles back inanely, and when Angel turns her attention to gossiping with Katie, Bradley meets his eye with very poorly concealed amusement. Colin mimes slipping a noose around his neck and hanging himself, and Bradley laughs.

Later, they’re in the back of a minibus heading home, and nearly everyone’s asleep, lulled by the rhythm of the motorway. Colin’s listening to his iPod and watching the lights and the signs pulse into a blur, and Bradley leans over the back of his seat and tugs one of Colin’s earphones out. ‘What you listening to?’  


‘Some compilation.’  


‘Maybe you could use this time to work out what you want for your first dance at your wedding with Marie.’

Colin rolls his eyes, checks Angel’s asleep and leans in. ‘Have you met her?’  


‘If she’s who I think she is, you’re in trouble, mate.’  


‘What kind of trouble?’  


‘The kind where you end up backed against a wall wishing you had an alarm whistle and a cattle prod.’

Colin grimaces, because in his head Marie is now an Amazon with a tranquiliser gun and really good aim. ‘How come Angel’s not trying to set you up with girls?’ Bradley shrugs and looks away, and in the faint orange light of the motorway he seems different. Softer, or something. ‘Do me a favour?’ Colin says, and Bradley looks back and nods. ‘Don’t leave me alone with her? I’m really bad with, like, _friendly_ girls and if she’s mates with Angel I don’t want to – I don’t know – mess that up.’

A brief flicker of amusement flashes across Bradley’s face, but he reaches for the earphone he tugged out of Colin’s ear and slips it into his own, ignoring whatever joke he was about to make. ‘If you look like you need rescuing I’ll come and save you,’ he says. And then his face twists in agony and he adds, ‘What _is_ this, Colin?’ 

Colin rolls his eyes and digs his iPod out of his pocket, finds something he knows is more Bradley’s thing. Sitting close enough to share is uncomfortable but he doesn’t mind. He’s sort of used to it, the way Bradley just nudges his way in, and he supposes he owes him in advance for the knight in shining thing.

______

Angel’s party turns out to be like Angel personified. The music is aggressively cheerful, a mix of recent hits and Christmas standards, the decor is an explosion of fairy lights and candles, and she’s laid on themed red, white, and green snacks. She’s even made Christmas tree nachos with cranberry salsa, and Bradley makes fun of her – at length – for having far too much time on her hands before stealing a whole plate. 

Colin sips at the mulled wine Angel thrust at him and watches Bradley as he acts out some anecdote in the kitchen for a small crowd of people, some of whom he apparently knows but most of whom he doesn’t, not that that seems to matter to him in the slightest. He calls everyone _mate_ and he’s his usual mix of jocular and inclusive and endlessly funny and _nice_ , and Colin can see a couple of Angel’s friends eyeing him like they wouldn’t mind dipping him in cranberry salsa and nibbling him around the edges. Which is presumably why Angel doesn’t bother to set him up with girls. He attracts them like he’s girlnip. Colin feels a flicker of jealousy, but he’s not sure quite what it’s for, because he doesn’t want to _be_ Bradley – 

There’s a tap on his shoulder.

‘Hey Colin, this is Marie, who I was telling you about.’

Colin looks and Angel grins at him encouragingly, like he’s fourteen and he’s never spoken to a girl before. 

‘Oh, hi.’

Marie, as it turns out, has huge flame-red hair and looks a bit like a Fraggle. Colin smiles at her anyway because if she’s brought a tranquiliser gun it’s in her handbag so he’s in no immediate danger. He holds out his hand and she shakes it and says, ‘Nice to meet you,’ in a lilting Scottish accent.  


‘You’re a foreign interloper too, then?’ he says, and Marie’s smile widens.  


‘We should be ashamed of ourselves,’ she says, ‘coming over here, stealing their jobs.’  


‘I know, right? I feel bad about it constantly.’

Angel looks at him like she wants to pat him on the head and give him a gold star, and so Colin rolls his eyes and says, ‘Do you want a drink? I just finished mine, so – the mulled wine’s really nice.’

Marie nods, so Colin goes into the kitchen, refills his own mug and gets another one off the mug tree. Bradley leans into him, steadying himself with a hand on his elbow and says, ‘The safe word is _liquorice_.’  


‘What? How’m I supposed to work that into something that sounds normal?’

Bradley shrugs at him, amused and a bit glassy with alcohol, and Colin goes back to the stove and pours another ladle of mulled wine into his own mug to take the edge off the enforced flirting he’s about to do.

When he goes back over Angel’s nowhere to be seen, and Marie’s leaning against the wall with fairy lights making patterns in her hair. He hands her the mug and they talk about nursing and what they’re doing for Christmas, and after a couple more mulled wines she puts her hand on his arm and then his chest, pressing into him kind of possessively. He convinces himself that she’s just being friendly and drunk, asks her a question about ward death rates hoping it’ll be the equivalent of a cold shower. It doesn’t work so he tries to attract Angel’s attention, but she just gives him a big, encouraging smile from across the room. He looks around for Bradley but can’t spot him, and when Marie starts eying his lips like she’s going to lean in and kiss him in front of everyone he panics, excuses himself to go to the toilet, locks the door behind him and sinks against the shower.

The bathroom pulses with wine, the tiles advancing and retreating in a wild, nauseating dance, and he decides he’s too drunk to deal with it on his own and texts Bradley with:

  
_LIQUORICE. LIQUORICE. LIQUORICE._

He’s not entirely sure what he expects to happen but nothing does, and after five minutes he knows he’s been in the bathroom a suspiciously long time, so he runs the tap, flushes the toilet and leaves again, praying to any god that has his brain on intercom to save him.

He scours the kitchen for Bradley but he’s still not there, and as he passes, Angel shoos him towards Marie, mouths, ‘She really likes you,’ and gives him a double thumbs-up. He forces a grin and wonders if he has it in him to make some kind of _you seem lovely but you’re not really my type_ speech, like he’s seen people do in bad movies, or if that would just make him sound like a weirdo and a loser and an utter bastard at the same time. 

He tries to make the journey last as long as possible, takes tiny steps, but he still gets there eventually. Marie greets him with an, ‘I got you another drink,’ and he actually _is_ grateful for that. He takes it with a smile and drags in a long gulp of Angel’s very potent mulled wine, which now appears to be more rum than mulled anything. He leans on the wall, trying to force his body into some distinctly _not interested_ shape, but he’s not sure it works because her eyes turn sparklingly flirtatious and she says, ‘So I was wondering if you wanted to come – ’

A warm hand thunks onto Colin’s shoulder and nearly makes his knees buckle, and he looks, startled, into Bradley’s face. ‘Sorry to butt in,’ Bradley says, his arm wrapping around Colin’s neck in a half-hug that bears a startling resemblance to a headlock, ‘but this is our song and Colin promised to dance with me.’

The tune that’s playing is _All I Want For Christmas Is You_ , and Colin glances between them thinking, _rock, hard place, rock_. Bradley makes the decision for him, dragging him away to where a bunch of people he vaguely recognises are shuffling in an embarrassing, drunken mockery of dancing, and Angel is bump and grinding against a guy who he thinks is called something like Bryce. Colin shoots Marie a hopefully convincing look of apology before Bradley takes his hand and spins him out from under his arm like he’s a five year old bridesmaid at a wedding. He stumbles over his own feet and the edge of the rug, and Bradley pulls him back, lets go of his hand but somehow that means they’re closer, and Colin can’t work out why until he realises he’s kind of staggered into him and has only stopped because Bradley’s chest is an immoveable object. 

‘I hate this song,’ he mutters, and Bradley rights him and looks at him, pitying and very amused. Colin takes a little step back, trying to blink the fairy lights still, wondering if he should go back to the bathroom for some tactical vomiting. ‘What d’you think I should do about – I think she was going to invite me back to hers.’  


‘Do you want to – ’  


‘Totally not.’

Bradley smiles at him, and Colin sways on the spot. ‘Give her ten minutes and she’ll have found someone else,’ Bradley says.  


‘What’m I s'posed to do for ten minutes? That’s ages.’  


‘I don’t know, Colin. Maybe you could hang out with me, and, say, just pretend you’re a normal person having fun.’

Colin huffs, the expulsion of air making him stagger a little, and Bradley catches him and leans him against the bookcase. ‘How drunk _are_ you?’ he says.  


‘Really fucking drunk. I don’t do well with wine.’

Bradley laughs, pointing at him like a teacher, ‘Don’t move.’

He disappears behind Colin’s closing eyelids, and Colin presses his head into the chilled, comforting wood of the bookcase, watching lights waltz behind his eyes out of time with Mariah Carey. He’s not sure how long passes, but eventually Bradley says his name and presses something cold into his hand. He opens his eyes and it turns out to be a pint of water. 

‘Thanks,’ he mutters, and gulps at it. ‘Where were you, anyway, before? I couldn’t see you.’  


‘Did you miss me?’  


‘I needed you and you weren’t there.’

Colin pouts at him, unable to work out through the red wine circulating in his system if he’s faking petulance or if he really means it. Bradley chuckles at him regardless and says, ‘I was just outside. It’s snowing. I think it might stick.’

_____

Bradley turns out to be right about Marie _and_ the weather. She finds herself a tall, broad, mousy-haired guy and leaves with her tongue down his throat, and the snow does settle and carries on falling in huge, globby clumps. People start to make a move, heading out skidding and whooping like they’re six, and when it’s just a couple of Angel’s closest mates, this Bryce guy, and the two of them, Angel says that they can all stay if they want because getting a cab can be hellish when it’s snowing.

Her mates take the spare room, and Angel tries – and fails – to surreptitiously drag Bryce into her room. Bradley calls, ‘You shameless hussy,’ at her down the hall, and she retaliates by throwing a pillow at him, fixing her face into a mask of perfect sweetness and saying:

‘Colin gets the sofa. You can sleep on the floor like a dog.’ Bradley gestures in protest, but before he can really get into it her door has closed, and Colin crawls onto the sofa, tucking his arm under his head, closing his eyes and longing to be asleep. Bradley tuts, kills the lights, and makes a meal of curling up on the floor, noisily punching the pillow and muttering about chiropractors. He gets bored of that when Colin ignores him, shifts and says, ‘So you didn’t fancy Marie, then?’ 

‘Not especially.’ 

‘Was it because she’s a redhead?’ Colin murmurs a sleepy laugh and says, ‘I’ve a suspicion that was not her real hair colour.’ 

‘What kind of girls _do_ you like?’ 

‘Why? You want to set me up with someone too?’ 

‘Just asking. You never talk about it.’ 

‘Well there’s not exactly a lot to say at the minute, to be honest.’ 

He opens his eyes a crack, and when he makes Bradley out in the dark, he’s raising his eyebrows in some gesture for him to go on. Colin rolls his eyes and swallows, deciding that the first question’s easier than the implied one. ‘I don’t really have a type, or anything. I guess I like people who are sort of – interesting. Like I have to be interested to be _interested_ and I don’t meet many people who are, like, my kind of interesting I guess.’ 

‘What’s that mean?’ 

‘Just – I don’t know.’ 

‘You do know, you just don’t want to tell me,’ Bradley says, and he sounds so put out that Colin laughs. ‘I think you owe me after I saved you. And I’ll have forgotten in the morning so – ’ 

He trails off into a little inebriated sigh, and Colin considers it. It’s not that he doesn’t want to say it, more that he’s not really sure how to explain it, especially when he’s got a litre of rum in his veins and his eyelids are drooping. 

‘It’s sort of – I like people who’ll share their stupid thoughts without worrying you’ll think they’re a loser. And if I’m going to be with someone,’ he says, ‘it’s got to be someone I can just be me around. I hate having to pretend I’m something I’m not just so they’ll like me. I mean I do enough acting, you know? And I like to think that they feel the same, that if we’re together they’ll just be them, with all their idiosyncratic habits and quirks and – all the stuff they usually hide from people. I think that’s what love is. Not pretending.’ 

When he finishes talking his heart is smacking repeatedly into his ribs, because through the fug of alcohol his brain is half-forming a thought about that being sort of the way he is with Bradley, and so in case Bradley notices he says, ‘I made that sound like something from _Disney_.’ 

Bradley laughs, and Colin closes his eyes, takes a deep breath to try and still his skittish insides. He has to take a couple more breaths to manage it, but the rum in his veins is pulling sleep towards him, and in the darkness just before he tips into it, Bradley says, ‘I like Disney.’ 

Colin wakes up to the sound of his own teeth chattering. It’s fucking _freezing_ , and he draws his knees up to his chest, shaking all over, cold to his bones. His hands and his nose are the worst, so he pulls his hood up and shrinks back inside it, inches his sleeves down over his fingers, balling the material into his fists. It helps a bit, but even though he clenches his jaw he can’t stop his teeth from knocking against each other. He presses back into the sofa, balling himself up tighter, and as he lies there he can hear people talking. It’s still utterly dark, and he wonders how long he’s been asleep. It could’ve been hours or minutes, but he feels more if not entirely sober, and he wonders about getting up and looking for a towel or a coat or something to crawl under but can’t face losing what little warmth’s tucked between his arms and his body. 

‘Colin?’ 

‘Sorry. I’m – ’ It takes him two goes to get another word out. ‘ – really cold.’ 

He hears Bradley move, doesn’t think anything of it until Bradley pokes at his knee and says, ‘Budge up.’ 

‘W-w-what?’ Colin blinks at him in the dark, and Bradley rolls his eyes. 

‘ _Budge_.’ 

Colin doesn’t, and Bradley doesn’t wait, slides up onto the sofa in a way that’s actually pretty deft for someone who’s drunk what he has. It takes Colin’s brain a second or two to process what’s going on, and it doesn’t actually make it through the drunk, frigid wall in his head until Bradley actually next to him on the sofa, his stomach pressing against his knees and his face really close. 

‘What are you – ’ 

He tries to shrug out of the way, but he’s pretty effectively trapped. 

‘Look, I know you have some – I don’t know – personal space issues or something, but this is for survival, Colin. I don’t want you getting hyperthermia on my conscience.’ Colin tuts. ‘Turn round if you want.’ 

‘How is _that_ better?’ 

‘Do you want to end up being referred to as _the boy who got frostbite at a Christmas party and died_ , Colin? Do you want to be an amusing anecdote that people laugh at?’ 

‘I guess not.’ 

‘Shut it and come here, then. Body heat’s effective. I learnt it in the scouts.’ 

‘When were you in the scouts?’ 

‘All right, I saw it on a Ray Mears marathon on Dave. But the point stands.’ Colin tuts again because he can’t think of anything to say, and grudgingly shifts his knees to make some more room. Bradley grabs the cuff of his jumper and manoeuvres his arm between them, tucking Colin’s hands into his chest, and Colin can’t tell if his entire body is tense with cold or if it’s because Bradley’s pretty much everywhere. Colin catalogues it, all the places they’re touching: knees and maybe thigh; Bradley’s chin really close to his forehead; _his_ forehead precariously near Bradley’s chest; Bradley’s hands scuffing over his sleeve, trying to warm him up. ‘Jesus, how many layers are you wearing?’ 

‘Like – ’ Colin counts them in his head, largely as a distraction from Bradley’s hands and his burgeoning desire to run away. ‘ – four?’ 

‘How can you be this cold when you’re practically a human pass-the-parcel?’ 

‘Actu – ’ A shiver cuts him off his reply, and Bradley pulls him closer, hands on his back, then his shoulders. Colin inches into the pocket of warm air that surrounds him. He looks up, peering out from inside his hood, imagining that he looks like some kind of pathetic woodland creature who’s been caught in a rain storm and got locked out of its house. He tries again. ‘Actually, when I’m going to sleep with someone, I do that. Hide sweets between the layers. I like to think it takes the edge off the disappointment that it’s me inside.’ Bradley laughs, and his breath flutters across Colin’s cheek. ‘I’ll have to try that,’ he says. They’re quiet for a moment, nothing in the air but Angel laughing in her room, and the sound of fingers scuffing over his sleeve. And Colin starts to feel a bit idiotic, because actually Bradley’s really nice to be close to. He smells of an unobtrusive aftershave that’s clean and neat, and he’s really, _really_ warm, warm enough that relaxing into him is actually unavoidable. 

‘Better?’ 

‘Bit, yeah.’ Bradley shifts a little, bending his arm and making it a pillow under his head, and he leaves his other arm curving round Colin’s shoulder, like he’s maybe forgotten it’s there. He’s closer than he was, and really quietly he says, ‘Can I ask you a question?’ 

‘You just did. _Can I ask you a question_ is a question.’ Bradley’s jaw tenses in irritation, his mouth pulling into a perfect cat’s arse of fake annoyance, and Colin laughs quietly and says, ‘Ok.’ 

‘Why are you so – prickly?’ The word is carefully chosen, but still it makes Colin wish he could pull his hood over his face and make everything go away. He settles for turning, fractionally, into the cushion, so he can’t see Bradley. Or can see only bits of him, the slope of his chest and his jumble of clothes and the crook of his elbow. ‘Sorry, is that - ? I’m just curious. You don’t have to – it’s just actors, normally – I mean you get used to having people – ’ He sounds – for once – uncertain, and so Colin sighs and looks up, viewing him like he’s at the end of a tunnel. 

‘I don’t mean to be,’ Colin says. ‘Sometimes – ’ He’s cut off by a loud moan that’s far too feminine to be related to either of them, and the wideness he can feel in his own eyes is mirrored perfectly by Bradley’s. ‘Oh my god, is that – are they – ’ There’s an illustrative creak of a bed and a murmured _oh, yes, there_ that sounds not at all murmured in the quiet, and Colin’s hand flies up to his mouth, even though that won’t help at all. He covers one of his ears instead and screws his eyes closed. ‘I can’t listen to Angel – do that.’ Bradley disappears – or leans away, at least, and when he comes back he drops the pillow Angel threw at him over both their heads and pins it. In the darker dark Colin can feel Bradley breathing and see the vague sparkle of his eyes, and it’s a bit like being in a cave. ‘Hopefully they won’t be long,’ Bradley says. ‘Earlier she told me – in the absolute _strictest_ confidence – that she slept with him last week and he has a bit of a problem – erm – lasting.’ 

‘What? Why’d she tell you that?’ 

‘She thought I might be able to give her a hint to – you know – slow him down.’ 

‘What did you tell her?’ 

‘To be really, really enthusiastic and try talking dirty to him, the filthier the better.’ 

‘How will that help?’ 

‘It won’t. That’s pretty much the opposite of what she should do, but I was a bit offended she thought I knew anything about it, so it’s – payback.’ They both listen to the muffled sounds from the bedroom as Bryce grunts his way into a crescendo and Angel makes obviously fake appreciative _oh oh oh_ noises that culminate in a disappointed _oh_ when the bed stops creaking. They look at each other, trying not to laugh, and Bradley’s jaw works against it until he can manage, ‘She’s going to kill me in the morning.’ 

‘And rightly so. That’s a real bastard move. And it’s _Christmas_.’ Bradley chews on the inside of his bottom lip, rolls his eyes. ‘Am I going to have to send her apology flowers?’ 

‘That’ll be a fun conversation when they ask what you want on the card.’ Bradley slots the pillow behind their heads, just tucking it under his temple. ‘You want me to fuck off back to the floor now you’re warmer?’ Bradley says, and Colin really doesn’t, so he just shakes his head and closes his eyes. The dawn is a grey and silent creep, and as Colin flickers into consciousness he’s curled into Bradley’s shoulder. The air is still freezing but between them is warmth, and he shifts into it. At first he thinks Bradley’s asleep, but when he looks, his eyes are open. ‘Sorry,’ Colin whispers. ‘Did I wake you?’ 

‘You talk – ’ 

‘What?’ 

‘It sounded – kind of like a spell – you’re such a swot, running lines in your sleep.’ 

Bradley tugs on his sleeve with what feels like affectionate amusement, shifts more onto his side so they’re nose to nose and knee to knee. Colin hums some kind of amusement, sluggish with interrupted dreams and half-formed thoughts about _this_. About Bradley. Being near him is sort of – comforting. And – disquieting, in a way that’s exciting. 

It takes him a moment to realise that they don’t go together, at all. 

He focuses on breathing, tries to pick comforted or disquieted but can’t, and so he just stares at Bradley in the dark. Up close he seems vaguely unreal, like a black and white photo, his eyes too big to belong to anything but a cartoon character and his lips too perfect to be made of actual flesh. When he’s moving, talking, laughing, he’s a compelling frenzy, and actually it’s strange to see him be so still. Strange, but – nice, because he has one of those faces that’s usually hidden within something else, buried in a story that requires emoting, lost inside a joke or an anecdote, obscured by all the ways he can use his features to amuse. It’s nice to be able to just _look_ at him, to take in all the details, to see _him_ and not what he’s doing. 

Bradley’s fingers shift over his side in a slow, soothing circle, which Colin thinks might be an encouragement for him to nod off. His hand is against Bradley’s stomach, and he can feel the low, pulsing, in-out-in again of him breathing. He wonders if Bradley’s fingers _do_ mean for him to sleep, or if it’s something else, if Bradley just likes this too, is making the most of him not being _prickly_. A couple of things flicker through Colin’s head – maybes and part-thoughts about things Bradley’s said or done. It’s a flick-book of eagerness, nonsense texts and jokes, and a thought unfolds, collecting all of that up and distilling it. 

Colin inches his hand up, brushing his knuckles over the front of Bradley’s top, watching his fingers so he doesn’t have to think about what the hell he’s doing. He keeps expecting Bradley to say something but he doesn’t, and Colin’s fingers make it as far as his neck. He just touches the skin there, tracing a tiny square like it’s the most fascinating thing in the known universe, and in the moment it feels like maybe it is. He looks up, cautious, and Bradley sort of smiles, crooked and slow and maybe a bit inviting. _Just to see_ , Colin shifts up into him. Without much forethought, he touches Bradley’s jaw and kisses him. Bradley’s lips part like it’s utterly expected and very, very wanted, and the thought sends a jitter of excitement right down to Colin’s toes. He nudges his bottom lip with his tongue because he might as well do it properly, and finds that Bradley’s mouth is warm and soft and accommodating. Somehow it feels familiar, like they’ve already done this a hundred times. But they haven’t, and a wave of newness breaks in Colin’s head, propelled, he thinks, by an arm sliding underneath him and pulling him closer. He eases away and says, ‘What are we doing?’ 

It’s a breathy whisper, and in the quiet he can hear his heart inside his ears, thunking like percussion. Bradley’s gaze is steady but studiedly so, and he says, ‘I think they call it kissing, Colin.’ 

His tone belies his casual words, shivering with nerves, and Colin says, ‘I meant _what the fuck_ are we doing?’ 

He pushes Bradley’s hair out of his eyes like that’ll help them both see the answer, and somewhere beneath the panic manifesting in his own chest, he registers that Bradley’s breathing really, really hard and he’s the cause. It seems far more important than the question, and Bradley’s _there_ and warm and offering up a kind of shocked _I don’t know, but –_

Colin kisses him again. It’s soft, at first, but that’s nowhere near enough and so he clings to the front of Bradley’s top and presses into him. The voraciousness of it takes him a bit by surprise because he wasn’t aware of wanting this as much as he apparently does, was less aware of Bradley wanting it at all. But his hands are reassuringly purposeful and direct, move inside his hood and over his hair, making everything disappear into _Jesus that feels good._ They wriggle their legs together and shift to make their bodies slot, and the kiss that follows is urgent and breathy and makes him feel restless. A bit of him keeps thinking, _is this really happening?_ because it’s _Bradley_ , but every bit he touches – his thigh and his hip and his arm – it all feels solid and tangible enough. _Skin_ , he thinks, skin is real, and he kisses Bradley’s neck, tasting and breathing hard, lifts his jumper away from his waist. Bradley gasps at the feel of his cold fingers and Colin murmurs a platitude, mapping the shape of him, the dips and the tautness and the heat, drags their mouths back together thinking yes, real, _fuck_. 

Before he can really do anything with the thought Bradley eases him back into the sofa. The solidity of his body makes a surge of want trickle and settle behind Colin’s bellybutton, and his kiss is messy and desperate and makes Colin’s insides tighten. Bradley’s hand skims his arse, hurried but curious, and he sucks his lip into his mouth in encouragement, shifts against his thigh. His stomach is in knots and his jeans are far too tight and he unintentionally lets out a low, rumbling noise when Bradley presses closer, demonstrably hard and a bit more demanding. His lips turn sort of hesitant so Colin murmurs _yes_ , and they start out slow, shifting against each other but with intent, hips and breath stuttering when they get it right. The friction of the denim against his hard-on is intoxicating but nowhere near enough, so he pushes Bradley away a little, undoes the button on his jeans, making room for his hand. Bradley’s whole body gives a startled jolt as Colin touches him, but when Colin kisses him again there’s permission in it, so he doesn’t stop. There’s not much room but Colin fits his palm around him, giddy when Bradley inches into his hand with a needy little groan. They dissolve into something frantic and staccato and all Colin can do is mutter hot and incoherent breaths against his cheek and hair and mouth. He knows that neither of them is going to last very long, but really doesn’t care. 

He bites Bradley’s lip and twists his hand, and Bradley comes, muttering a strangled _guh_ against his neck. For a moment he’s just erratic breath, a warm deadweight, and Colin murmurs frustration and shifts, pressing into his hip, not really caring what he’s grinding against because he’s so damn close. Bradley’s fingers roam over his arse and move him, find a rhythm that makes Colin’s breath hitch and his hands purposelessly scrabble over his back and his shoulders. Bradley nips at his neck, licks his way to Colin’s ear and that’s _it_. He lets out an unintelligible word that maybe starts out as some kind of plea and comes in his jeans, fisting his hand into Bradley’s top for something to hang onto. 

Moments pass – he’s not sure how many because they’re lost to a blank _oh_ and _did that really just happen?_ – and he thinks that one of them should say something but neither of them does. 

They lie in the dark in a tangle of legs and heavy breathing until Bradley moves, nudges Colin’s nose with his until Colin gives him what he apparently wants and kisses him. Bradley smiles against his mouth and it’s sort of soft and affectionate, and Colin’s so surprised that when Bradley rearranges him so he’s kind of on his shoulder he doesn’t protest. His brain starts to panic about something, but another part says _sleep and worry about it later_ , so that’s what he does, and for the moment, nothing matters. 

_____

As consciousness pricks behind his eyes again, a bit of Colin’s brain tells him to ignore it and go back to sleep. But he’s squashed against the back of the sofa and his neck’s sort of uncomfortably crooked, and when he shifts he realises there’s something heavy and warm across his middle. He looks and it’s Bradley’s arm. _Remembering_ is a sobering flash of hot, messy kisses and god, _damp patches_ that obliterates all the words he knows except for _fuck_.

He stays perfectly still with a flurry of _fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuck_ in his head, forces his brain to work through it, to remember _precisely_ what happened. Memory answers some prescient questions and he says, really loudly inside his own head, _it’s fine, we didn’t actually fuck._

But it’s not fine. It’s the opposite of fine. Because he’s Bradley and they’re friends and they work together and he’s _Bradley_ and that was close enough to fucking to count, and that makes it really fucking stupid and not at all fucking _fine_. For a moment he’s lost to an unspecific but virulent panic that makes all of him itch. Colin swallows a painful knot in his throat, and thinks. He should probably wake Bradley and say something sensible and grown-up like, _so, we appear to have got drunk and done something a bit ill-advised. What do you think we should do?_

His brain chokes on the thought.

Ill-advised. He can’t say _ill-advised_ to Bradley. Who says ill-advised? And who _thinks_ ill-advised in a moment like this? _Ill-advised_ is a bad outfit or a crap joke or an unfortunate food choice. _Ill-advised_ is a small, mortifying fuck-up that’s contained and limited in scope. This is so much worse than _ill-advised_. 

His entire body hums with the word _escape_ , twitching with the urge to run the fuck away and deal with all of this at some vague, hazy, _later_. He eyes the door. It’s maybe ten, fifteen feet away, and he checks and – _yes!_ – it’s a Yale lock. He can probably be out in the hall in fewer than ten seconds if he’s lucky, and who wakes up that fast?

He looks at Bradley’s arm. Undeniably, it’s a problem. He could lift it and find it a more appropriate home, but that’s risky because he thinks Bradley’s a pretty heavy sleeper but is now the time to test it? Colin looks above his own head. Maybe he could just slide out..? Going head-first over the arm of the sofa seems quite _ill-advised_ , so he eyes his feet and decides to limbo. Colin shifts down, pressing his lips together in concentration and trying to move a millimetre at a time. He’s cleared maybe five centimetres when Bradley’s hand twitches on his chest and suggests he’s about to tip into consciousness, and Colin thinks, _typical, Bradley’s such a fucking hugger that he does it in his sleep._

He holds still, watching Bradley for another flicker of movement. His heart hammers and his brain races through: _what the fuck are you going to do if he wakes up and you have nothing better planned than shouting ‘ill-advised!’ in his face? What if Angel comes in to kill him for being a bastard and catches you both, here, in the aftermath of some ill-advised not-quite-fuck that still counts?!_

Crap.

Crap crap crap crap crap. 

Colin eyes the back of the sofa. It’s low. Well, fairly low. And he’s not athletic, but it looks - doable, in an emergency, which this definitely is. _Quick like pulling off a plaster,_ he thinks. _Up the back of the sofa, get your arse on the top, flip a leg over and you’ll be running for the door before his arm has even noticed you’re gone._

His brain supplies an unhelpful _but what if_ – he bats it away irritably, replacing it with: _just do it, or Angel’s going to come in and Bradley’ll wake up and you’ll have to deal with both of them. And you can’t. You know you can’t. This is more kinds of stupid than you have the capacity to deal with._

He takes a deep breath, glances at Bradley. His hair is ruffled and he looks sort of content and impossibly angelic for what they were recently doing. Colin squeezes his eyes closed and tells himself to strike words like _angelic_ from the record. 

Quick, like a – 

Colin pulls in his stomach so he takes up as little space as possible, wedges one foot against the arm of the sofa and slowly levers himself up and out from under Bradley’s arm. He inches arse-first up the back of the sofa in a sort of bow, crests the top of it. There, he encounters problem one: Bradley stirs in response to his arm no longer being where it was. Problem one is quickly followed by problem two: the back of the sofa is narrower than Colin anticipated. Instead of the grace and poise he saw in his head, he slips off the back, flails out at nothing and thunks onto the floor in a heap of arse and palm and knee. Problem three: the floor is wooden. He bites back an _oww_ , but he’s still made quite a lot of noise, and – 

‘Col?’

_Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you, problem four._

Colin freezes. The voice is sleepy and confused, but still, panic that Bradley’s going to catch him sneaking out like a bastard and a coward runs around his insides like a pack of nervy rodents. 

_Think of something clever._

Colin eyes the door. He could crawl to it, but his knee’s already hurting like - like he just whacked it on the _fucking floor_ , and running’s way faster. He scrambles to his feet, staying low. He just needs to think of something to do in case – 

Bradley murmurs, 'Colin?' again, and Colin _does_ think of something clever. 

He adopts an accent and says, quite simply, ‘No.’

He intends the accent to be maybe American and believable as a passing party-guest but through the fear in his throat it comes out a sort of hybrid of South African and, impossibly, _Welsh_. Bradley’s forehead wrinkles and one eyelid flickers and reveals a tiny slice of pupil. Colin abandons clever and just bolts. He manages to wrench the door open and hurl himself out into the hall, pulls it closed behind him, his heart hammering at his ribcage and his brain saying, unconvincingly, _see? Easy. He’ll never know that was you._

Outside, the snow is still falling. It’s less deep and crisp and even and more thick and in his way and really fucking cold. Colin buries himself inside his top, and as he trudges for the Tube, he calls himself all the worst names he can think of.


	3. Three

At first, Colin kids himself that he’s just avoiding Bradley until he’s figured out exactly what he wants to say to him. That gets him through the first four texts and a voicemail, and he goes over and over and over it: _I was drunk, you were drunk, is there any chance you have amnesia?_

He closes his eyes. He can see Bradley’s face like it’s right there, and the words _total fucking insanity_ slap against his skull. Bradley. What was he thinking doing that with _Bradley?_ Bradley from work. Bradley who he doesn’t even like hugging. Bradley who’s not even gay.

Total. Fucking. Insanity.

He’s searching his cupboards for vodka when there’s a knock on his door. He halts and it reiterates. It’s Bradley’s rhythm, syncopated and impossibly jovial. A bit of Colin’s brain says, _just open the door and get it over with – you can’t avoid him forever_ – but a louder bit says, _you just watch me_. He hits the carpet in case Bradley’s peering through the peep hole and crawls behind the sofa, one knee sending jolts of pain from the bruise there to everywhere. He curls up, thinking, _I’m out – I’m not here – give up and go away._

Bradley knocks again, louder, and Colin winces.

‘Are you in there, Colin?’ 

Guilt creeps under his skin like cold, dirty maggots, but he thinks, _well, I can’t go and answer it now or he’ll know I was avoiding him_ , and stays where he is. He presses his fingertips into his forehead hard enough to hurt. After a moment there’s a sigh and footsteps and everything goes quiet. He waits ten minutes before he gets up and goes to check that Bradley’s really gone. He can’t see out of the peep hole because there’s something over it, and he wonders if it’s some kind of trap before telling himself not to be such a ridiculous loser and to open the door. 

There’s a Post-It stuck to the flat number, and he grabs it and peers at it, wondering who the hell carries Post-Its in their pocket. It says:

_Hey Col –_

_I’ll be in the Red Lion for an hour if you fancy a drink._

_B_

Colin sinks against the doorframe, thinking that maybe Bradley knows him well enough to have anticipated him not opening the door and that he brought this with him. It makes him feel like throwing up. He pictures the pub, the awkward _about what happened_ , apologies and disclosures and feeling too big for his own skin. He can’t face it, and so he goes back inside, closes the door, and watches a whole hour tick by on the clock.

_____

After that, he’s not _avoiding_ Bradley he is actually hiding from him, and when he goes home for Christmas it’s gets really easy. In his head he make-believes that Bradley’ll just assume he doesn’t have any reception because he really does think Ireland is stuck in the Dark Ages. He forces himself to buy his own lie, that of course Bradley’ll think that’s why his calls and his texts are accumulating in a lonely, unanswered pile.

On his first night back Colin goes out with his friends. He tries to push it all away and lose himself in their chatter, tries not to think about how many kinds of idiot he is. He tries really hard to get drunk but for some reason can’t, like something in his throat is soaking up the booze and forcing him to stay sober. When he gets in, his phone lights up with the words _Bradley James_. He doesn’t really want to look but it’s like a scab – he needs to poke at it a bit to see how bad it is.

He clicks, and the messages are all there in a one-sided conversation:

3.15: _Missed each other yesterday. I’m going home today and I guess you are too?_

5.14: _On the train so I’m free and insanely bored if you want to call me?_

6.06: _Train just stopped because there are ducks on the line. Ducks. On. The. Line._

9.37: _I’m starting to feel like a right twat, here._

10.45: _If this is a hint, I’ve taken it._

11.38: _OK, I’m going to bed. But let me know if you’re in a gutter or something?_

Colin stares at the words until his eyes feel hot. He types: 

_Home so not much reception._ He sends that, crawls into bed and spends most of the night staring at the wall. His phone doesn’t murmur again until Christmas Day, when he gets a message that says: 

_Merry Christmas x_ And it’s all quiet after that until just gone midnight on New Year’s Eve, when he gets a: 

_Happy birthday, mate._ Honestly, it’s a bit like being stabbed. 

_____

In the new year, he’s not sure what he’s doing, avoiding, evading or hiding, but it’s all accompanied by being away filming so he doesn’t have much time to dwell. It’s a tight shoot, lots to do and too much to think about, his schedule as full as his head, but at the end of the day there’s always a gap between exhaustion and sleep where he’s alone with everything he’s done.

Every night when he falls into bed he checks his phone, willing there to be a new message. There never is. He knows it’s all his own fault for bolting and then being _unavailable_ , but somehow that doesn’t help, at all.

One night when he utterly can’t drift off he digs out his laptop, maybe sort of intending to send Bradley an email, get all his thoughts in order and explain the lack of reception and that he’ll be back soon and maybe they can see each other and sort things out before they have to work together again. In his head he can see the vague shape of it, that he can make it all sound plausible and logical and believable, and enough time has passed that he no longer feels as ragged with panic as he did before. He thinks that he’ll talk about _being professional_ and being _mates_ and of course that’s what they both want so somehow they’ll find a way. And Bradley’s easy going. He’ll say _no worries_ and _already forgotten_ and _sure, everything’s fine, Colin, why wouldn’t it be?_

He opens iTunes to look for something to listen to. He sees the words _Half-Inched By Bradley_ in the sidebar, remembers that day. In fact, he remembers a whole bunch of days – days he didn’t think to appreciate while they were happening, tiny, insignificant _nothing_ days that weren’t really nothing at all. 

_What if that’s gone?_

It takes him a moment to realise that it’s not the days he misses. It’s a painful jolt, like walking into the corner of the bed frame. 

_Stupid_ , he thinks. _A hundred different kinds of stupid._

He hits play on the first track because he has no idea what else to do, flops back on the duvet and stares at the ceiling. He has no idea when this stopped being about an ill-advised wank on the sofa and started to feel bigger in his head, when it started being about _Bradley_ and losing something he had never quite seen the full value of. He’s not sure when he started wanting _Bradley_ , how that can just creep up, why he didn’t see that it was there and just step the hell around it. 

And it _is_ a hundred different kinds of stupid. Setting aside the work and the friendship and the fact that he’s not actually sure Bradley does boys, Bradley’s not even his type. Bradley’s loud and he likes quiet. Bradley’s sporty and he can never tell who’s won the cricket, even when they read out the score. Bradley writes films in his head while real films are playing and that’s really annoying.

In that way that’s not annoying at all and actually sort of brilliant.

Colin rolls over and tries to drown himself in the duvet. He breathes in a mouthful of cloying, nylon fibres, and his own words float back in a taunt:

_I hate having to pretend I’m something I’m not just so they’ll like me._

He’s never pretended with Bradley. And Bradley’s never pretended with him, because no-one with an ounce of sanity would _pretend_ to be Bradley James and think that was winning. And it’s _so fucking Disney_ he wishes he’d choke, but – 

Once he’s thought it, he can’t unthink it. What they like about each other, what they’ve _always_ liked about each other, is that. They’re just who they are and against the odds the other finds them appealing and wants to stick around while they just _be_. He likes that Bradley laughs when he makes up stories about not believing in electricity and that it’s all elves and sprites with arses that light up. He likes that Bradley thinks _The X Files_ is a documentary. He likes that they can argue for days about whether minestrone or oxtail is the worst soup, that they have all these idiotic little connections that don’t mean anything until you stop and add them up. The thought sits there in his head, lonely and a bit dejected, because he has _no idea_ what he’s supposed to do with that. Fair enough, he likes Bradley and at some point Bradley liked him enough to let him put his hand down his jeans. But it’s still _beyond_ stupid. And the way he’s acted – 

He gets up for a glass of water, and when he’s on his way back he catches his shin on the edge of the bed frame for real.

 _Fucking perfect_ , he thinks, and as he sits, cursing and rubbing at the dent, he lets the playlist carry on, hearing things in it that he’s sure weren’t there before.

_____

London is dreary and cold when Colin gets back. Or maybe it’s him and he’s leaking it into the air.

He unpacks, chucks his stuff in the washing machine and goes through his post to find the _Merlin_ script he’s expecting. He opens it and gets a paper cut, which he really hopes isn’t a portent. The date of the first read-through throbs in his head like he’s hit it with a hammer. It’s close. Really close. Too fucking close. He makes himself a cup of coffee and flicks through the pages. It’s involved enough to be distracting but his thoughts still wander every time he sees the word _Arthur_ , and when he gets to his first spell he looks at the phonetics and pokes them and says, _this is all your fault._

He allows himself two days of wallowing and listening to his _Half-Inched By Bradley_ playlist before deciding that really he needs to do something about this ill-advised sofa wank liking Bradley but not because it’s stupid–thing. It takes him two more days to run through options for what that _something_ should be, dismissing them as variously heinous and mortifying before deciding they’re all heinous and mortifying so it doesn’t really matter which one he chooses.

He finds himself at Bradley’s flat.

The lights are on and he can hear the TV blaring. He has it all planned. They’ll exchange pleasantries in a way that’s bound to be awkward, and he’ll follow that with something comfortingly clichéd, and then do the thing he’s rehearsed about professionalism – 

Which isn’t what he _wants_ to say, but it’s what he _should_ say, and he’s an actor. He can fake meaning it. He looks at the door, and somehow he just can’t knock. His brain presents him with an idea: leave a note. Then the ball’s in Bradley’s court and he can just – follow his lead.

As ideas go he thinks it’s moderately genius, except for the fact that he’s only having it now and consequently he has neither a pen, nor anything to write on. But in the foyer there was a notice board, so he dodges back down the stairs and the corridor, lurks around the corner while a really short girl collects her post from a box that’s far too high for her. When she leaves he nips to the notice board. There’s a pencil on a string and he steals a Car For Sale advert and turns it over. He has no idea what to write, but his brain comes through again and thinks, _just write what he wrote_. It feels pleasingly gesture-ish, so Colin scrawls:

_Hey –_

And then remembers that he doesn’t really know the area very well and he has no idea what the nearest – or in fact any – pub is called. He chews his lip, eventually goes with:

_Know it’s been a while, but if you want to see me I’ll be loitering outside._

_C_

It’ll have to do, and he looks around for some spare BluTac but all the notices are pinned. He gets out some chewing gum, chews all the way back to Bradley’s door and sticks the note to the number using it. His heart gives a jolt when the TV switches off, and so he knocks, rapid and loud, and bolts down the hall, not really knowing why he’s bothering when the whole point is to see him.

Outside, it’s drizzling, and so he sits on a low wall in the car park under a tree, waiting.

And waiting.

And chewing his nails, and then some more gum, and waiting.

He checks his watch, but that doesn’t help because he’s not sure what time he knocked, only that it’s long enough ago that his top layer is damp and his arse is numb and his chewing gum has lost all its flavour. He watches another half an hour tick past, wondering if this is some kind of payback, if Bradley’s inside, watching him through the window and laughing his arse off as he sits in the rain. He’s about to give up and go home when the front door opens and Bradley comes out, pulling his collar up against the wind. Colin gets up with a terse, ‘You took your time.’ 

Bradley jumps. ‘What the – ’ 

His eyes are wild like he’s debating fight or flight, and Colin supposes that’s fair because in this top, especially bedraggled, he does look ever-so-slightly criminal. ‘Colin?’ Colin rolls his eyes and shoves his hands into his pockets, because Bradley’s expression suggests he’d maybe prefer being mugged to seeing him. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’

‘Did you not get my note?’ 

‘What note?’ 

‘I left it on your door.’ 

‘There wasn’t a note on my door.’ He says it so certainly that Colin swallows his chewing gum, some incipient panic itching in his stomach and doubt crawling in his head. ‘You live in number five, right?’ 

‘No,’ Bradley says. ‘I used to before I moved. I live in number eighteen, here.’ The horror is like a crashing wave – Bradley isn’t here because of him – there’s no ball in his court or pleasing gesture and – _it just keeps on coming_ – Colin lifts his hand to his head and slaps his forehead. 

‘Oh – so I’ve just left a note on some random door – oh god.’ 

‘What’d it say?’ 

‘Um – been a while – I’ll be loitering outside – ’ 

‘That’s a bit creepy and stalkerish, Colin.’ 

‘ _I know_.’ Colin presses his palm to his skull and embarrassment forces his stomach into a tight knot, like a plunger. He has no idea – _no idea_ – why he didn’t just text Bradley like a normal person – or just knock the fucking door – and yes, it would have been the wrong door but at least he’d have _known_. For a second Bradley looks like he’s going to laugh, but instead he looks away and when his gaze returns, his face is even and purposefully collected. ‘So what _are_ you doing here?’ 

‘I thought we should – talk or something.’ 

‘Actually I’m off out,’ Bradley says, gesturing to the road. ‘I’m meeting my mates and – I’m already kind of late, so – ’ 

‘Oh, no worries. Some other – then.’ Colin forces a smile and backs away, and as he turns he presses his lips together and thinks, _what were you expecting? Pining?_ ‘Come, if you want.’ Colin looks back. Bradley sighs, lifting his eyebrows as if he can’t quite decide if he means it, and so Colin shuffles into an, ‘Are you sure?’ 

‘No,’ Bradley says, but he grabs Colin’s sleeve and pulls him into step beside him anyway. 

_____

Bradley’s friends are a bit loud and really blokey and one of them has just had knee surgery, which gets discussed at length and with a level of detail that makes Colin cringe. They all talk to him like they’ve known him for ages, buy him drinks without hesitation and call him _mate_ , and clearly they adore Bradley, in a way that manifests as making fun of him constantly.

For the most part, Bradley acts like nothing’s happened, like they just ran into each other and he let him tag along. He makes sure Colin doesn’t feel excluded by the shared history he has with his friends, sits next to him with his body slightly turned towards him, likes he’s the thing in the room he’s ready to spring up and defend with a sword. It feels so familiar that Colin’s not sure why he didn’t notice it before, and it’s comforting to think that even after everything, Bradley’s still Bradley. Occasionally he can feel him stealing glances when he thinks they’ll go undetected, and Colin can tell that he’s acting, a bit, that somewhere underneath maybe this isn’t as easy for him as he’s making it look. 

The conversation ebbs and comes to halt on Bradley at school.

‘ – and so at that point we’re thinking – well, it can’t get any worse – we’re going to get weeks of detention and we’ve cracked the headmistresses fish tank – ’ 

‘ – and then Bradley – _Bradley_ decides that the ideal thing to do is try and save the goldfish by putting them in her flask – ’ 

‘ – and she comes in and assumes we’re making goldfish tea – ’ 

‘ – and we all get suspended for animal cruelty.’ Bradley looks at him, like _you agree that that was logical and I’m misunderstood, don’t you Colin_ , and so Colin tells him he’s a genius. Bradley smiles at him, and there’s something in it that he couldn’t see before. Bradley likes this, having him here, having him be on his side, and as he sits there he thinks that maybe Bradley counts on him, a bit. Eventually they’re out in the cold and Bradley’s mates are heading in the opposite direction and bidding them goodbye. They linger on the pavement and the whole city is there but Colin can’t feel it. ‘I like your friends,’ he says, staring at the concrete beneath his feet. ‘I didn’t think I would, but – and they _really_ like you.’ 

‘Well why wouldn’t they?’ Bradley says, in a tone that suggests he’s rolling his eyes. ‘I’m a likeable guy. According to everyone but you.’ 

Colin looks up, grimacing, because now they’re here he doesn’t want to shatter the evening with that. ‘Don’t,’ he says, and it comes out as a sort of question and a bit more of a plea. 

Bradley looks at him for ages, like he’s thumbing through his soul, and really quietly he says, ‘Ok.’ 

And maybe it’s the quiet. And maybe it’s the slight smile. And maybe it’s just that Colin’s really fucking missed him, but somehow and for some reason, he leans in and kisses Bradley. And it’s not even a real kiss – it’s a sort of drawn-out peck – and when Colin realises what he’s doing he backs off straight away because what the fuck is he thinking – 

But it’s real enough that he felt Bradley kiss him back, and he has no idea why this being _beyond stupid_ isn’t more important to him. He scratches at the back of his head, avoids Bradley’s eyes and says, ‘Where can I get a taxi?’ 

‘Just down there.’ 

He looks at Bradley’s hand rather than his face, forces a smile without the guts to check his response, and as he walks to the taxi rank, every step is like kicking his shin into the corner of something hard, pointy, and wooden. 

_____

Before, Colin had never really, truly appreciated the phrase _gripped by panic_. He hadn’t known that panic – the right kind of panic – could be truly vice-like, a choking fist with the power to paralyse. But in an anaemic corridor in the bowels of the BBC on the morning of the first read-through, he learns that yes, it is completely and utterly possible to be _gripped by panic_.

All the moisture drains from his mouth and heads for his palms. The cause? Bradley James, at the drinks machine. Colin hovers. He hadn’t planned for this. He’d planned to slip in early, cover everything up with some kind of show of professional _fineness_ – but of course Bradley had to go and thwart that like a bastard by wanting to get a drink. He considers his options. One, say hello like nothing has happened. Two, walk past and ignore him. Three – 

He can’t think of a three, and one and two are equally if differently unappealing. He goes through it. He can’t just say _hello_ because he’s Colin and that’s Bradley, and recently Colin kissed Bradley (again) and hasn’t decided what to do with it (again). On the other hand, he doesn’t want to walk past in a fit of ignoring because that flies in the face of the fineness he was trying to create, with a side order of making him look like a fourteen year old (again).

 _Think of something clever._

The problem seems to be that he’s Colin, and so he thinks, _well, what if I wasn’t? What if – just to get through this moment – I’m someone else?_

_Bingo._

Colin works fast, creates a character in his head. He gives him the name Nolic – which he likes because it’s pleasingly Nordic. Colin might be gripped by panic but Nolic is fine, because he’s Nordic Nolic, Nolic the Nordic. He’s probably a warrior and not afraid of anything, least of all a man buying hot chocolate out of a vending machine. Perfect. 

Colin squares his shoulders. Nolic is a strider. He’ll stride over, toss Bradley a _hey_ , go into the room and persist with the rest of his plan. He’s about to take his first stride when Bradley looks up. His eyes are soft and they start to smile, and Colin stops being gripped by panic and starts being absolutely fucking throttled by it. But he has to move, or Bradley’ll know he’s not fine and that he’s nervous, and so even though there’s nothing he wants to do less, Colin launches himself down the hall.

_I’m not Colin, I’m Nolic – say hey and keep striding. Nolic. Hey. Stride. It’ll all be fine._

The _stride_ comes out as more of a big skip and Colin feels less like a proud Nordic warrior and more like a nervy deer. He tosses out his would-be nonchalant _hey_ and unintentionally does that voice again, the one that’s part South African and part Welsh. Bradley’s forehead puckers into a frown of absolute and utter bafflement, his mouth open as if he’d been about to say something. Colin darts into the room and the cover of other people like he’s a gazelle being chased by a pack of ravenous hyena, rather than an actor being followed by his colleague and a plastic cup of hot chocolate.

He sinks into his chair and hides by rooting through his bag and thinks, _I may actually be the most ridiculous human who has ever lived._

To take his mind off it he creates a whole back-story for Nolic in his head. Nolic is from a small, cold village on the edge of a lake and enjoys fishing and catching eel with his bare hands. He likes death metal and setting things on fire and maybe beats his chest when he’s excited.

Somehow Colin makes it through the day. He tries not to notice that while he’s lost inside his own twisted mind creating fictional Nordic warriors in order to cope and keep up the pretence that he’s fine, Bradley just _is_. He chats with everyone and makes them laugh like it’s any other day. Except for the part where every time he looks at Colin, it’s with an expression of vague yet deepening dismay. As they’re all heading out Katie suggests they go for a drink to catch up, and Colin can’t think of an excuse fast enough because he’s playing _What’s On Nolic’s iPod?_

The bar is the kind that Colin hates, the kind where he always feels like he’s about to be thrown out for not being quite cool enough. Normally what he’d do is stand with Bradley until he forgets to feel awkward, but when he tries that he’s back to _gripped by panic_. Bradley makes him laugh and Colin can’t help it. He flirts with him, and he keeps picturing himself getting too drunk and kissing him in front of everyone. He goes to the toilets and runs the cold tap and sticks his hands under the water until he can’t feel them anymore, thinking _stupid stupid stupid_ over and over and over.

When the door swings open he guesses it’s Bradley, and a glance in the mirror proves him right. He thinks _don’t panic, what would Nolic do?_ but before his brain has come up with an answer Bradley’s asking if he’s all right.

‘I’m – fine.’

Bradley raises a disbelieving eyebrow, and so Colin forces a smile that he can see in the reflection is utterly unconvincing, and edges round him. He’s reaching for the door handle when Bradley’s fingers close on his elbow, and instinctively he flinches and leans away. Bradley’s fingers fall back to his side, but he says, ‘Can you stop running away?’

‘I’m not – ’ 

‘What else would you call it?’ Ages seem to pass, and Colin can’t think what to say, so he scuffs the floor with the toe of his trainer and crosses his arms. ‘I don’t get it,’ Bradley says. ‘I mean I thought I had it, because – at Angel’s – well yeah, I can understand that, I guess. Maybe you didn’t want to give me the _I don’t like you like that_ speech. But if you don’t like me _like that_ then – well maybe you could stop kissing me and stuff because it’s kind of messing with my head.’ 

‘Sorry.’ 

‘I’m not looking for an apology, it’s – ’ 

‘Sorry.’ 

‘Stop apologising and just – ’ Bradley runs out of words, and Colin eyes the urinals, wondering if he could vault one and leap out the window. ‘I mean if all this is about me being a bloke,’ Bradley says, and Colin looks up, ‘then – is it? I mean it didn’t _seem_ as if that was – new to you – ’ He stops when Colin glares at him, actually recoils a little, and Colin digs his fingers into his arm because he has absolutely _no_ intention of having _that_ conversation with Bradley in the gents at some crappy bar. ‘It’s no-one’s business but mine who I sleep with.’ 

‘And normally, that would be a really valid point, but when – ’ 

‘Seriously. Don’t.’ Bradley sighs, looks straight at him in a way that’s probably supposed to be conciliatory. 

‘If you just want to be mates then – I’m a big boy, I can handle that. And if you want to be something else then – yeah, let’s try that, but – I can’t do _this_. I’m not very good at complicated, Colin.’ 

‘Then what - ?’ 

‘Then _pick_. You can’t keep kind of – not quite having either and both at the same time. And I don’t know – can we try being grown-ups?’ 

‘You think I’m being childish?’ 

‘Well – only a bit,’ Bradley says. ‘And I still get excited by Kinder Eggs, so....’ Colin’s fingers tighten on his sides and he thinks _perfect_ , that now Bradley’s trying to make light of it all, and something about it makes Colin want to punch him in the face. 

‘I’m sorry I’m not handling this the way you think I should.’ 

‘That’s not – ’ 

‘Maybe you should just find someone less _childish_ who won’t mess with your head.’ Bradley’s face passes through weary, calls briefly at hurt and hardens into defiance, and he says, ‘You know what? Maybe I will.’ 

The door swings closed behind him, and Colin stands there feeling simultaneously hollow and riotously angry and utterly raw. He closes his eyes, listens to the thunk of his own pulse as it thunders through his body, and wonders how the hell that just happened. Why did he say any of that what he meant was _I don’t know how to do this with you and I hate that I’m acting like such a moron and can you please just help me figure it out?_ His own reflection’s gaze is scathing, and he thinks that maybe he can blame being gripped by panic, that its clasp around his throat cut off the blood supply to his brain. 

He hides for a while, but someone comes into the toilet so he tells himself to stop being pathetic and goes back out into the bar. What he intends to do is find Bradley and say something like _so that being something else thing, can we try that, please?_ , or maybe _I’m sorry I’ve been a weirdo but it’s because I do like you like that, lots_ , but he scans the room and Bradley’s gone. His absence is obvious because _he’s_ always so obvious, and Colin goes back to the others and doesn’t listen to a word they’re saying. 

When he gets in his entire flat seems empty of Bradley, which he knows is ridiculous because it’s not as if he’s usually there. He crawls into bed and grabs a book, stares mindlessly at the pages until his phone beeps. 

The words on the front say _Bradley James_ and his chest flutters. He clicks on the message. It’s a picture. A picture of Bradley in bed with some girl. He’s licking her cheek and she’s laughing her head off, her hand on his forehead messing up his hair. Underneath it, the words say: 

_Happy now?_

Colin grips his phone so hard it leaves dents in his fingers, and as he stares and stares and stares at it he feels like his lungs have been cleaved in two.


	4. Four

The next day Colin debates pulling a sicky, which he’s never, ever done, not even when he was at school. It wouldn’t even be a lie, because every time he thinks about seeing Bradley, the contents of his stomach threatens to surge towards his throat.

In the end he opts for arriving late, burying himself in his script and willing the day to end. He tries not to look at Bradley but when he has to he avoids his eyes, focusing instead on the bridge of his nose or a tiny patch on his forehead. It works well enough, gets him to lunchtime, where he can hide in other people’s conversations and pretend he doesn’t care – at all – who Bradley’s rolling around in bed with. He finds a seat and sinks down, pressing at his forehead because he didn’t sleep, and hating Bradley for making him hate his job and himself for not seeing any of this coming. 

‘Are you all right, Colin? You seem a bit – perturbed.’ 

Colin looks up and it’s Anthony, which he supposes is the lesser evil because Angel would be unbearably perky and Katie would say something about there being no problem that can’t be fixed with a little charm and a lot of style. 

‘Just – focusing,’ Colin says, and lifts his script. Anthony nods like he doesn’t believe him but isn’t going to push it, and offers him a Polo. ‘I don’t, thanks, there’s pig bits in them.’ 

‘Oh, is there?’ Anthony pops another one in and sucks on it thoughtfully. ‘You can’t taste it.’ 

‘Can you not? I wouldn’t know.’ 

‘They should make these in bacon flavour. Catch on, that would. The after dinner mint that’s also a hangover cure.’ 

‘You should write and suggest that. Maybe they could make egg, too. And toast. You could build a whole breakfast out of sweets.’ 

‘Don’t be silly, Colin,’ Anthony says. It’s his Uther voice and when Colin laughs a little, Anthony grins at him, like that was the point all along. 

Colin thinks, _fuck you, Bradley James, you’re not the only person I get on with. You’re not the only one I like,_ and some version of that holds him up through lunch and into most of the afternoon. 

And then of course they get to A Big Scene where looking at each other is absolutely unavoidable. Bradley seems tired and a bit sad, underneath it all, and in spite of everything Colin feels a tiny pang of – regret, or something very like it. He puts it down to Bradley’s puppy-like ability to never look more appealing than when he’s made some kind of mess, and turns the page with a sigh. 

_____

Colin’s been home less than ten minutes when there’s a knock on his door. 

He frowns at it because the knock is a bit hesitant, goes over and peers through the peephole. In the corridor is a fish-eye distorted version of Bradley. He’s standing with his hands in his pockets the same way he probably did when he got accused of attempting to kill the headmistresses’ goldfish, all teenage and sheepish and small. Colin debates not answering but that’s not very Nordic warrior, and so he sighs and straightens up and opens the door. 

‘What?’ he says. It’s only a touch South African-come-Welsh. ‘What do you want?’ 

‘About the text – ’ 

‘Oh, you wanted to make sure I got it, did you? Well, I did, and I _am_ happy now. I’m giddy. Gleeful. In fact, I’m delirious.’ 

Bradley shifts from foot to foot and meets his eye. 

‘That was my ex,’ he says. 

‘I don’t really want to know the details, thanks.’ 

‘I meant – it’s an old picture. I kept it because – I don’t know – I thought it was cute. And last night I had a bit to drink and I was – it seemed like a good idea at the time.’ 

‘It seemed – ’ Colin's tone is more indignant than he intends, but it doesn’t matter because Bradley cuts him off. 

‘But on reflection,’ he says, deliberately, ‘even though you were being a moron, it was a bastard move. And I’m sorry. Very sorry.’ 

Bradley swallows, heavily, and for a second, Colin actually thinks that he might punch him in the face. Bradley looks like he’s thinking the same thing and wondering if he should get ready to duck. He tries a cautiously apologetic smile and Colin huffs. He wants to hate Bradley for being a bastard and himself for liking him anyway, but in the moment he doesn’t really do either because he’s too busy with the relief. What’s worse, he’s thinking about _possibility_ , that if Bradley’s not actually sleeping with some girl, and if Bradley came here to apologise – 

Colin thinks of his words, _yeah, let’s try that_ – and – _damn_ , that was a pretty good line, and _damn_ if he isn’t thinking of saying something _remarkably_ stupid. 

In the absence of a better idea, of a better defence against the burgeoning desire to kiss Bradley rather than kick him in the balls, Colin lets the door swing closed. It sighs into place and he stares at it, thinking about being sensible and that this is for the best, that whatever he _feels_ – whatever Bradley feels that made him act like such a bastard – it’s still _stupid_ and he should just let it go. Bradley’ll walk away and tomorrow will be – awkward probably, and then at some point they’ll get over it and everything will be _fine_. 

The kind of fine that really fucking hurts. 

He sees a flicker of all of this from Bradley’s point of view – him running out of Angel’s and hiding at home and making things so confused, all the messages that went unanswered, letting him tag along to the pub when that wasn’t at all what he deserved, him not even having the guts to answer what was a perfectly reasonable question. But he’s here. After all that, he’s _here_. 

Colin opens the door again, and Bradley stops walking away and leans back, his eyebrows inching up with surprise and maybe – _god_ – hope. 

‘You didn’t do your usual knock,’ Colin says. 

‘I thought if you knew it was me you wouldn’t answer. And I really wanted you to answer this time.’ 

‘Oh, that’s – ’ 

He lets the door go again, sighs at it, because that’s _annoyingly_ Bradley and insightful and actually kind of sweet and – 

He catches the door before it’s even hit the frame, and Bradley lifts his eyebrows and peers at him, appealing and questioning and a bit uncertain and _goddamn it_ , that’s exactly the look Colin can’t – 

‘You want to come in and have dinner?’ 

Colin’s not sure where the words come from, but once they’re out they’re out, and the thought that Bradley might say yes makes him feel panicked and reckless and exhilarated all at once. It’s probably _at least_ fourteen different kinds of stupid, but – 

Bradley smiles at him and nods, adds, ‘Unless you’re going to poison me or something.’ 

‘I might _accidentally_ stab you with a fork.’ 

‘Fair enough.’ 

Bradley’s smile widens, and as Colin gestures to the kitchen and the door swings closed behind them, he gives out this little breath that’s part amusement and very much relief. 

‘So what do you want to – ’ 

The word _eat_ dies on his lips because Bradley kisses him. It’s a messy, eager smoosh, and after an initial noise of slight astonishment and a little surprised stagger, Colin kisses him back, reaching for his jaw to steady himself. Bradley’s hands are everywhere, like he’s checking Colin’s as he left him, and Colin sinks into him, greedy and giddy and a little bit shaky. He’s not sure – at all – if this is a good idea, but it seems like an unavoidable one because he’s been pretty fucking useless without it. Bradley’s lips are soft and adept, pass over his with careful savour, and it’s – 

Like slipping under the surface. 

Colin takes Bradley’s face in his hands, and they fall back against the wall. It’s reassuring and comforting and disquieting in the very best way, and he wonders if he’d forgotten how good this felt, or just been afraid to remember. One of Bradley’s thumbs traces patterns on his neck, makes a warm, nervous shiver shimmy down Colin’s body. He eases away enough to look at Bradley, rests his forehead against his temple. He’s breathing really hard, and when Bradley opens his eyes they’re smiling. 

‘So,’ Colin says, and he can’t think of anything to follow that, which makes Bradley laugh. And Bradley’s laugh. He has one that’s really small and private and that’s it. It makes Colin’s stomach flip because he knows not everyone gets to share it. 

‘If I let you go,’ Bradley murmurs, ‘are you going to run away again?’ 

‘I’m _definitely_ a flight risk, so I think you’d better – ’ 

He kisses him again, teasing and slow. Bradley’s fingers tighten on his hips and bring him closer, and Colin can feel him, hardening inside his jeans. It fogs his thoughts with lust, intense and aching and _god_ , but he manages to murmur, ‘This is _so_ stupid.’ 

He barely moves away enough to let the words out, and Bradley nudges his nose with his and says, ‘Is it? Why?’ 

‘How many reasons do you want?’ 

‘One. One good one.’ 

Colin swallows, because now he’s _saying_ it the thought of Bradley _listening_ to him is terrifying. 

‘We work together,’ he says, picking the one that’s the easiest, the one that leaves him the least open and exposed. ‘I don’t want to – fuck that up.’ 

Bradley fingers just inch under his shirt and touch his skin. Colin presses his lips together to try and limit the effect, and looks at him. His eyes are huge but sort of timid, and Colin wants to push him against a wall and cover his mouth with comforting kisses and make him forget he said anything. 

‘Way I look at it,’ Bradley says, scuffing his stomach with his thumb, ‘if it – this – say it _doesn’t_ work. We’ll have a few days of hating each other and maybe a week of things being awkward, and then we’ll remember that we used to get on and find a way to get back there. It’s – I mean – I think we could do that. If we had to.’ 

A bit of Colin’s brain says, _no, no I couldn’t. I can’t have this and then not,_ but the rest of him looks at Bradley’s quirked eyebrow and the way his smile is crooked and perfect and – 

‘Oh – fuck it.’ 

Colin kisses him, unabashedly. He wraps his arms around him and doesn’t try to hide anything, samples Bradley’s mouth and his jaw and his neck, and when Bradley murmurs smiles and tugs him closer it’s – 

It’s not at all reassuring or comforting. It makes his whole body feel desperate and nervy with craving, and he draws his hands up to Bradley’s neck, holding him exactly there. And maybe it’s that it’s a bit reckless, or maybe it’s just that he’s _Bradley_ , but his blood thunks in his head like it’s thickened. He presses into him like it’s not possible to get close enough. And he really _had_ intended to make dinner, but – months of hiding and _not_ doing this has made Colin impatient. He grabs a fistful of clothes – not entirely sure who they belong to – and drags Bradley towards the bedroom. He bumps his shoulder on the doorframe and his elbow on the door itself, bouncing more by chance than skill into the room. The dresser tilts in protest as they knock against it, but he doesn’t care, because there’s nothing more important in the entire universe than Bradley’s mouth and his own pulse inside his skull. He rakes his fingers through Bradley’s hair, and when Bradley’s tongue takes a swipe over his lips it makes the word _fuck_ spark behind his eyelids. Bradley’s fingertips slip under his shirt, glide along his waistband, which does _absolutely nothing_ to quell the lust building in his stomach. 

Colin eases up into them, desperate for more. ‘Do you want to – ’ 

He’s not even sure what he’s going to say next, but it doesn’t matter because Bradley looks at him hastily, scuffs his hip and says, ‘Yes.’ 

‘You don’t know what I was going to – ’ 

‘Whatever. Yes.’ 

_Fucking hell._

If there’s a sexier idea than – Colin fumbles with the blinds, not caring that he doesn’t manage to get them to roll down properly. He scrabbles for the hem of his hoodie and lifts it up, taking his t shirt with it, tosses them both – he has no idea where. Between them they get Bradley out of his too and press together, and his palms turn needy as they range over him, taking in warm solidity, the way all of him seems made for touching. Colin kisses him harder, trying to convey _you feel amazing_ , and maybe he manages it because Bradley’s fingers twist against his hair. Colin inches down his chest, flickering his tongue out to taste, leaving a warm, wet marker where he’s been. Bradley’s stomach flutters as he breathes in heavy, rough snatches and Colin undoes his jeans and lets them fall down. He grazes his fingers through the trail of hair that disappears beneath Bradley’s boxers, inches over the front, eliciting a strangled noise from above and a twitch of distinct interest from his cock as it strains against the soft material. He can’t resist a smile, does it again. Bradley’s hips inch up in response, and Colin knows that he could drive him absolutely crazy like this but it’s not quite what he wants. 

He licks his way back up to Bradley’s mouth, captures it with a kiss, takes a step back towards the bed, tugging on his hand in an urge to follow him. Without either of them looking they find the bed and topple onto it in a pile of legs and kisses that barely find their target. Bradley’s fingers fumble with his belt like they’ve forgotten how buckles work, and Colin takes over, shimmies out of his jeans, trying to create as little distance as possible between them while attempting not to knee him anywhere sensitive. 

Things get sort of heady and hazy, a messy conflux of skin and sensation and exploration and _hunger_. A bit of him keeps thinking _holy fucking hell, that’s Bradley,_ expecting to wake up sweating madly in a horrible hotel room, all of this the product of too warm nylon sheets and an over-active imagination. It all gets very real when they slot their legs together, though, because Bradley shifts against him, muttering, ‘ _Jesus_ ,’ between hot, breathy kisses, and Colin wonders why Bradley’s stomach against his makes him ache and how he’s ever going to take a whole breath again when his lungs are full with wanting. 

He relieves Bradley of his boxers, gets his own down as far as his knees and then toes them off, too turned on to care that it’s all a bit inelegant because Bradley’s cock is hot and hard against his and _god almighty_. His fingers scrabble to clasp them both, and when he fits them together, wraps his palm and holds, Bradley gasps and completely loses the ability to kiss. Colin shifts up into his own hand, rocking against him, using his hips to create a rhythm, and Bradley’s head falls against his shoulder. 

Colin works his hand over both of them in a sure, strong, stroke, before quickening, making their breaths turn erratic and intermingle with muttered half-words. Colin licks the crook of Bradley’s neck, letting his skin slip through his teeth, and Bradley’s entire body arches against him. When he comes it’s against Colin’s stomach with a sharp intake of breath and a rambling word that might be _fuck_ , and Colin collects his mouth with a kiss and comforts his incoherence with his tongue and his fingers. He waits for Bradley’s body to recover itself, and after a moment Bradley eases away and kisses from his cheekbone to his ear, sloppy and lazy and a bit drunk with orgasm, muttering nothing that makes any sense, his breath hot and fast on his skin. 

Colin shifts against him, so hard that pretty much anything will do, and he’s a bit surprised when Bradley’s fingers slip down his stomach and move over his cock. They’re uncertain, so he fits his own hand over the top, groaning breathily when Bradley’s mouth presses against his. The hunger of the kiss and the rhythm of their hands makes his entire body pulse, and he leaves Bradley to it and tangles his fingers in his hair. After a moment he comes too, with a disjointed sigh and words that would have been embarrassing, had they not disappeared into Bradley’s waiting mouth. 

For a second he can’t do anything but breathe, startled and warm and drowsy, and he keeps waiting for the thunk of his heart to turn panicked and start echoing a word like _escape_. Bradley inches into him, kisses him, long and slow, and then so deep he can’t think anything. He murmurs happy nothings, explores like he’s never kissed him before, toying with the place bottom lip meets top, running his tongue slowly over his teeth before slipping inside. He presses their bodies together, liking the feel of the slickness between them and it’s – he thinks the word might be _blissful_. He can feel Bradley’s heart stammering but it’s not just lust. Bradley’s fingers and his mouth are full of care, and Colin hasn’t had both in the same place before. 

‘So that wasn’t exactly dinner.’ 

Bradley’s words nudge at his lips in a tiny murmur, and Colin smiles, kisses his chin and says, ‘If that’s not how you cook, you’re doing it wrong.’ 

Bradley looks at him. His hair is everywhere and he’s grinning and he says, ‘If that’s how you cook, I’m _definitely_ staying for breakfast.’ 

Colin laughs, and Bradley’s fingers trace his jaw and then his lips as if they’re fascinating. Bradley’s eyes meet his. They’re amused and a bit surprised and – 

Something he’s not brave enough to find the word for. When Bradley’s really close it seems to make sense, but he can’t ignore all the ways that this could go really, really wrong. And maybe Bradley thinks they could go back to friends and colleagues, but Colin’s further in than that, and _now_ , now he knows it could be like this, he could never – 

Colin swallows it. ‘You can, if you want,’ he says. 

‘What?’ 

‘Stay.’ A smile inches up Bradley’s face, and Colin adds, ‘I mean it’s harder for me to run away when we’re, you know, in my flat, so if you stay for breakfast I can’t – ’ 

He trails off, his heart pounding, and Bradley looks at him. ‘You’re going to have to tell me at some point, you know,’ he says, and when Colin lifts his eyebrows in confusion he adds, ‘why. Really why. I don’t buy the _we work together_ thing.’ 

Colin makes a murmur of vague yet abject protest, which gets him an amused, breathy laugh and Bradley’s lips pressing to his rumpled forehead, and after a moment Bradley kisses him again and soothes all his other thoughts. 

When they eventually get up they both decide it’s too late to cook anything resembling real food, and so Colin makes them toast. Bradley argues with him about whether or not it should always be accompanied by peanut butter, and Colin wins by shoving a piece into his mouth with speed and dexterity he clearly wasn’t expecting. They open a couple of beers, go into the lounge, sit on the sofa, and Colin finds something to watch on Film Four. And it’s sort of like they’re still just mates, except that Bradley sits against the arm and wriggles his toes under Colin’s thigh, and when he gets bored of rewriting the script he works his foot up over his groin until Colin gives up on the movie and pins him to the sofa. 

_____

‘You want to talk about the fact that we’re both blokes, Colin?’ 

‘Not really. Do you?’ 

‘No, but I think we probably should. At some point.’ 

‘Ok, but does it have to be at _this_ point? Can I not just – eat my breakfast in peace?’ 

The memory of waking up next to Bradley and dragging him into the shower is still fresh on Colin’s skin, and he checks the clock. They only have ten minutes anyway, and a bit of him just wants to enjoy Bradley sitting in his kitchen, smelling like his shower gel, eating his Cornflakes, and wearing one of his t shirts. 

There are questions, though, and much as he’d like to avoid them he knows he can’t. Tackling it all with a time limit is probably as good as it gets. He sips at his tea, says, ‘Ok, you can ask it. If I’m, you know, gay.’ Bradley looks at him, lifts his eyebrow in reiteration, and Colin rolls his eyes. ‘I mean the honest answer is – ’ He pauses, swallows. ‘ – I don’t really know. Sometimes I think yes, definitely, and other times I’m not so sure. Most of the time I just feel like a loser and an idiot for not having figured it out yet.’ 

‘So you’ve slept with girls..?’ 

‘I have. Although not for a while.’ 

‘And – guys?’ 

Colin rolls his eyes again, nods, hides in his tea, taking tiny sips so he doesn’t drink it all too fast and have to deal with it without something to hide behind. 

‘And that didn’t help you sort it out?’ 

‘It really didn’t,’ Colin says, and laughs, because laughing is really the only response other than running the hell away. ‘I mean anyone wanting to sleep with you is nice, you know?’ 

Bradley pokes distractedly at his Cornflakes, murmurs a little. He wonders if he should ask Bradley, pretend he doesn’t have him figured. He settles for a vague, ‘You haven’t, before..?’ and Bradley looks like he’s about to laugh, but goes with a quick shake of his head. ‘But you don’t, like, mind the idea?’ 

‘I’d’ve thought actions were rather louder than words on that front,’ he says, and Colin sniffs amusement because he supposes they are. ‘The first person I ever really fancied was a boy, actually. I hadn’t thought about in ages, but – yeah.’ 

Bradley goes back to his Cornflakes, and Colin kicks his foot under the table. 

‘You can’t leave it there. I need – context or something.’ 

Bradley rolls his eyes, sinks back in his chair and looks out of the window, even though there’s no real view to speak of, just the brickwork of the neighbouring building. 

‘Ashley Bannister,’ he says. ‘We played football together and I – I don’t know. I was a bit obsessed with him for a while.’ 

‘And?’ 

‘And nothing. I was – fourteen. I – was mean to him and – lusted from – well, not afar but – ’ 

‘Across a football field, trying to work out if he was onside?’ 

‘Yeah.’ The word disappears into a laugh, and Bradley looks at him, a little bit impressed he knows the term. ‘I used to have this – I don’t know – daydream or fantasy or whatever you want to call it – that for some reason we’d be alone and we’d get tangled in the net and – I mean it was all very non-specific, but I liked him a lot. And he moved away.’ Colin smiles and Bradley grimaces. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’ 

‘Like what?’ 

‘Like I had some tragic teenage heartbreak and now I’m _interesting_.’ 

‘I – just – you have layers I didn’t know about.’ 

‘I have layers like a _carrot_ has layers.’ 

Colin finishes his tea, toys with the handle. ‘Well, maybe not _layers_ , then, but – leaves, definitely. Maybe we can upgrade you to cauliflower.’ 

‘What’s that make you?’ 

‘Oh I’m sweetcorn,’ Colin says. ‘You think you’re getting something all right, but once you’ve chewed the niblets off there’s this great thing at the centre you want to throw away.’ 

Colin winces, because he was joking when he started saying it but it’s sort of – revealing. 

‘Colin on the cob,’ Bradley says, and he sniggers, even though it’s not really funny. ‘Go on, then, tell me one of yours. A fantasy or something. Something embarrassing. Even us out.’ 

‘Do I have to?’ 

‘Yep. It’s the morning after rule. You have to share.’ 

Bradley fixes him with a smile that’s at once cheeky and knowing and a bit flirtatious, and Colin presses his lips together to avoid dragging him across the table in a show of undignified lust. 

‘I have a bit of a thing,’ he says, keeping his tone completely even and a bit prim, ‘for the idea of doing it in a bath of warm spaghetti.’ 

Bradley’s eyes widen and his mouth works for a second without producing any noise. And then he says, ‘Hoops?’ 

‘Oh – _no_ ,’ Colin says, tutting. ‘That would be – disgusting. I mean real spaghetti. I’m not a pervert.’ 

‘Wh – ? How is that – how did you even – ?’ 

‘I don’t know. I just – thought of it one day and it – stuck.’ 

Bradley mouths incredulity at him and says, ‘Well, that’s – remind me to say no if you ever offer to make me carbonara.’ 

Colin shrugs in a sort of _well you asked_ , looks at the clock. ‘We should get going in a minute,’ he says, and Bradley nods. ‘Is this going to be weird?’ 

‘Probably, a little bit.’ 

‘That’s the wrong answer.’ 

‘It’s the honest answer.’ 

‘Well, honest answers can be wrong, too. I mean you’re wishing you didn’t know about the spaghetti thing, right?’ 

Bradley meets his eye, and it makes Colin’s breath catch in his throat. Sometimes Bradley looks at him, and it’s like he can see all of him, his fears and his insecurities and all the things he tries to hide. It’s _always_ fleeting, but it _always_ makes his heart thud. 

‘This is only going to be a big deal if you make it one, Colin.’ 

‘You’re the one who said it would be weird.’ 

‘A _little bit_ weird,’ Bradley says. ‘I just meant because we’ve known each other a while and – it’s not exactly going to be – I don’t know – _traditional_ , is it? You’re not going to play it cool for a day and then call me and say, _so do you fancy the pictures at the weekend?_ because – well, we’ll be together all day and the lines are – blurry. We’ll sort of have to make up how to do this while we’re doing it. And that’s before we even get to the two blokes thing or the fact that I’m _beyond_ rubbish at this. Or the fact that you – you know – have a remarkable capacity for freaking the hell out. So actually, I think if we can pull off _a little bit weird_ that’s – actually pretty amazing, given everything. And you can handle _a little bit_ weird, can’t you? I mean you make your living pretending to talk to dragons.’ 

Colin considers it, and him, but really he already knows the answer, or the vague shape of it, because it’s tangled with Bradley’s _whatever, yes_ , and the way that Bradley’s fearlessness about doing this when he’s never done it before makes him feel brave by association. 

‘We really need to make a move,’ he says. ‘And it’s _one_ dragon. I’m not a slut.’ 

_____

The first thing that changes is that Colin can’t stop looking at him, and when Bradley’s sitting on the other side of the room with his script, attention elsewhere, he feels like it’s ok to let his gaze and his thoughts wander. They wander through the morning, stick for a while on the way Bradley looks in the shower with his hair plastered down and a smirk on his face, and trip _ever so slightly_ into the future. 

When they take a break, he slips his phone out of his pocket and types: 

_So, do you fancy the pictures this weekend?_

**Bradley James:** _Sure, what do you want to see?_

**Colin:** _Oh, you expect me to have a whole plan?_

**Bradley James:** _It’d be polite. Show you’ve put some thought into it._

**Bradley James:** _Otherwise I’ll assume your real motives are shady and involve getting me naked._

**Colin:** _Damn, you saw through that, then?_

**Bradley James:** _I can read you like a cheap, trashy paperback._

**Colin:** _Shall I just abandon pretence, then? You want to come to mine, get a bit drunk and feel each other up? I know I’m no Ashley Bannister but maybe I’ll let you touch my penalty spot._

On the other side of the room, Bradley doubles over with laughter, and it’s all Colin can do to arrange his face into a mask of perfect seriousness and shoot him a fake glare at his lack of professionalism. 

**Bradley James:** _Bastard._

They spend the whole afternoon sneaking glances at each other, and if it’s weird Colin doesn’t notice because he’s too busy trying not to grin his face off. At the end of the day Bradley loiters in the car park, and Colin catches up with him, trying to remember how far away from each other they used to stand and how they used to look at each other before they got naked and entangled. 

‘So,’ Bradley says. ‘I was going to nip to the gym for an hour or two but I was thinking _later_ – ’ 

‘Oh, you’re going to be needy, are you? We’ve got weekend plans but you want to do something tonight _as well_?’ 

‘This is _keen_ , not needy.’ 

‘Oh, Ok. Just – they look remarkably similar on you.’ 

Bradley shoots him a look of amused irritation, folds his arms and waits for Colin to acquiesce. Which of course he does, instantly, because Bradley being keen and amused is so much more than adorable. 

‘You want to come over?’ Colin says. ‘Maybe I’ll make you _actual_ food this time.’ 

‘Can you cook actual food?’ 

‘I’ll have you know I can make three different things. But you have already had the toast, and that may be the best one, so you might want to get a snack or something on your way.’ 

Bradley laughs, says, ‘See you later, then?’ and when he shifts into what is clearly going to turn into a hug, Colin edges away. ‘Oh – you’re _still_ going to be weird about that?’ 

‘I’m not – _being weird_ , I just – ’ 

‘All right, all right.’ 

Bradley gives him a good natured grin and purposefully puts his hands in his pockets. He raises his eyebrows as he backs away in an obvious _see? No hands,_ and Colin rolls his eyes and then offers him a tiny wave that makes him feel like a child. 

_____

‘Oh, make yourself at home, why don’t you?’ 

Bradley grins at him from the kitchen counter that he’s just sprung onto, his feet dangling against the cupboards. He leans over and steals a carrot from the ones Colin’s chopping, says, ‘You’re not going to begrudge me a sit down, are you Colin?’ 

‘I’m not, but my chairs are a bit offended that you’ve shunned them so completely.’ 

Bradley kicks at his hip. His hair is slightly damp from the showers at the gym and Colin can’t help a little internal smile that he came right here. It makes up for the fact that Colin’s flat is strewn with his things already – the trainers he abandoned by the door, the bag he threw onto the sofa, the hoodie he discarded on the table – he and them looking worryingly like they belong. He should have known it’d be like this, because when they first knew each other Bradley would invite himself in _for ten minutes_ and end up staying the entire night, discarding anything Colin had planned and doing it all in a way that he could never quite mind it. He’s never been very good at _letting people in_ , and as he chops broccoli he thinks that maybe that’s why this might work, because Bradley doesn’t wait to be let in so much as knock once and then shoulder the door. 

‘What you making, anyway?’ Bradley says. 

‘It’s a sort of noodle thing with vegetables.’ 

He tosses the things he’s been chopping into the wok. It doesn’t actually require much cooking, so he goes over to the kettle and flicks it on. That brings him within range of Bradley’s knees, and he scuffs them with his fingers. He glances up, says, ‘So, did you have fun at the gym? Actually, is that the right expression? Are you supposed to have _fun_ at the gym? Or if you’re having fun, are you doing it wrong?’ 

He bites his lip in question, shifts between Bradley’s knees, letting his hand wander just a little way up his thigh. Bradley watches him, apparently caught between amusement and something else. 

‘It was all right, yeah.’ 

‘Do I need to show more of an interest, or will that do?’ 

‘That’ll do.’ 

Bradley captures a fistful of his shirt and draws him in, and when Colin kisses him it’s like igniting. It’s involved and heavy and _sexy_ , and he eases up into it, lips turning more insistent as Bradley’s legs wrap around him. He murmurs into Bradley’s mouth, reaching for him and sliding him closer. Bradley’s fingers roam over his arms and settle on his neck, light and barely there. Colin’s stomach folds in half, and he wonders something vague but vividly enticing about kitchen counters and fucking Bradley just like this as he coaxes a groan out of his mouth with his tongue. 

The kettle boils and Colin pulls away and glares at it with a, ‘Shush, you.’ 

Bradley laughs, fingers drifting over the back of his neck, and when Colin dips his head into a sigh, Bradley kisses his hair. They stay like that for a moment, and Colin thinks _hell_. This is supposed to be the start of something and already he feels like he’s wading deep in the middle. 

The feeling lasts through dinner, meaningless conversation and a couple of deep but sort of purposeless kisses, and when he looks up the evening is gone. ‘So,’ he says. He’s not quite sure how to say it, other than _bed, then?_ because he’s far better with spur-of-the-moment, and it’s been so long since he had anyone he’s forgotten how it’s supposed to work. He wraps his fingers round Bradley’s wrist and pulls him closer. He looks dishevelled, his hair a mess from earlier and his grin sort of goofy as he leans in. His lips mumble a kiss onto Colin’s jaw, move to his cheek and then his ear, making him squirm just a little bit. 

‘I _did_ bring my toothbrush. Assuming you don’t want to kick me out.’ 

Colin smiles, and something about Bradley’s ability to read him makes his stomach clench. He leads him down the hall and shoves him lightly through the bedroom door. 

‘I’ll only be a minute.’ 

When he comes back from the bathroom, Colin’s half expecting to find Bradley rooting through his drawers and maybe having found something that’s scarred him for life, but instead he’s sitting in bed like this is utterly usual, illuminated by the faint vanilla light of the lamp, thumbing through the book that he’d abandoned on the bedside table. ‘What’s this about?’ 

‘It’s about this guy who writes obituaries,’ Colin says, shrugging out of his jeans, pulse picking up as he stares at Bradley’s chest, ‘and he has this totally boring life until one day he gets sucked into a world where physics and magic are the same thing, and he meets this girl, who hates him, but they have to go on the run together because this rogue – actually, do you care?’ 

‘Not especially, now you’re taking your clothes off.’ 

Bradley tosses the book, grins at him, and Colin shoots him an incredulous _shut up_. He lifts the corner of the duvet – finds that Bradley is absolutely completely naked – and decides that the only thing to do with that is to slide into his lap. He settles, biting back a grin at the warm, thunking _hell yes_ that permeates his body at the contact, tilts Bradley’s chin up. An evening’s worth of teasing sweeps them straight into a kiss that’s acutely absorbing and achingly slow. He tries to take it in, the strong lines of Bradley’s jaw beneath his fingers, the way his chest feels sturdy and soft, the press of his stomach and the way his breathing stutters, but really he’s too busy thinking, _god I’m glad we’re doing this_. He mutters something about being rude for still having his t shirt on. Bradley’s fingers tug on the hem and Colin lets him take it off, struggling to get it over his head quickly enough, returning hastily to his mouth. After a moment desire claws its way into Colin’s stomach and he thinks about Bradley inside him just like this, deep and barely moving. He wants that like he’s very rarely wanted anything, but uncertainty pricks at him in a mess of _too far too fast_ and an image of this slipping through his fingers. He kisses his way to Bradley’s ear and whispers, ‘Can I ask you something?’ 

‘You just did, didn’t you? _Can I ask you something_ is asking me something.’ 

Colin bites his neck in admonishment and says, ‘Don’t steal my pedantry. That’s – and why didn’t you tell me it’s really annoying when I do that?’ 

‘Because I think it’s – I don’t know, cute or something when you’re annoying?’ Bradley cups his chin and draws him away enough to look at. ‘What were you - ?’ 

‘Just – last night,’ he says, and shifts, makes Bradley bite his lips together, ‘when you said, _whatever, yes_ – did you really mean it?’ 

‘Of course I – ’ 

‘I mean – in the context of – you being naked in my bed, and me being – sort of horny, and having _done_ things that you haven’t – ’ 

He buries his face in Bradley’s neck, kissing, hiding and drawing in breathfuls of him at the same time. He smells a bit like warm, sticky, peardrops, and Colin rolls his eyes at his own idiotic thoughts. He strokes his fingers up to Bradley’s ear, toys with the lobe. Bradley shifts beneath him with a tiny little sigh and Colin logs it: _oh, he likes that_ , and does it again to be sure. 

‘I’m not exactly some bashful virgin, Colin,’ Bradley says, and his voice is quiet and a bit hoarse. Colin upgrades it to: _really likes that_. ‘If you’re doing something I’m not into, I _will_ say.’ 

‘Just checking.’ 

‘Well, that’s – ’ Bradley laughs, shifts down on the pillows until he’s lying more or less flat. He takes Colin with him, hands drifting down over his arse. ‘ – _very_ polite of you.’ 

Bradley holds him firmly and arches his back, and Colin unavoidably rocks against some hard evidence that Bradley either really, really likes having him in his lap or that thing he was doing to his ears. He lifts his eyebrows in a _see? Not exactly bashful_ and grins, sort of brazen and expectant. It makes desire and some defiant impulse race through Colin and make all of him bristle with a very good idea. 

‘Fine, you asked for it.’ 

Colin pins his hands and kisses him, sweeping his tongue in, barely waiting for Bradley to drag in a breath before shifting purposefully against him. It makes his own insides flutter. He bites Bradley’s bottom lip and lets it slide through his teeth, and the response is a shallow quick breath and fingers tightening against his knuckles. Colin’s stomach clenches and he glances at him. Bradley’s eyes have a sort of delicious challenge in them, so Colin says, ‘I _bet_ I can make you bashful.’ 

‘Oh, really?’ 

‘Yeah, _really_.’ 

He draws his fingertips down the sensitive skin on the inside of his arms and Bradley squirms, but lifts his eyebrows in a sort of _well, go on, then_. Colin kisses the muscles in his neck, grazing with his teeth, taking his time. He inches down past his collarbones, over his chest, flickers his tongue over his ribs to see if they’re ticklish. Bradley sighs a little but it’s not quite what Colin’s looking for. He licks a trail down his stomach, from his bellybutton right _down_ and blows lightly. Bradley stomach shrinks away in a vague shudder, and Colin gives in to a small, triumphant smile. 

He looks up to make sure Bradley’s watching, inches down and settles between Bradley’s thighs. He kisses the inside of one with wet, lingering, promise, holds his gaze, scratches lightly over his skin. His own fingertips tingle and Bradley’s cock bobs appreciatively. He makes a noise low in his throat, but his eyes are still far too focused and amused, so Colin shifts and dips his head, presses his tongue to the base of Bradley’s cock and curls his fingers around. Even before he’s really done anything Bradley’s body twitches. Colin prickles with pleasure. He draws his tongue and his fingers up, wets his lips, pauses until Bradley’s breath hitches with anticipation and maybe just a little frustration. He tries a languid swirl around the tip before taking him in his mouth, inching down until his lips are against his own fingers. He looks up. Bradley’s lips are parted and his eyes a bit dazed. Not bashful but – maybe surprised. Colin tightens his lips, moves in a slow rhythm, and Bradley presses his head back into the pillow, all of him taut, and after a moment his fingers are scrabbling against Colin’s scalp for something to cling to. Colin draws his mouth back up again and follows the damp trail with his hand, his own stomach tight as Bradley mutters something that was probably supposed to be a word. 

In other circumstances Colin thinks it’d make him smirk to make Bradley’s voice disappear into a desperate whisper like that, but as it is he’s too turned on to be smug. He pushes his spare hand into his pants, murmurs approval as his fingers shift into a familiar rhythm. Bradley looks down, and he makes their gazes catch before moving in again. He licks across the head of Bradley’s cock, _mostly_ for show, fisting his own and letting his eyes flutter closed as the sensation twists his guts into a knot. Bradley lets out a stuttering moan, swallows, loudly, and actually he _is_ a bit flushed. Colin _does_ smirk, but only until Bradley touches his jaw in an urge not to stop. 

After that he doesn’t. He doesn’t give much thought to finesse but he’s fairly certain Bradley doesn’t care. He certainly doesn’t. Desire pinches in his stomach as his hand matches the slide of Bradley’s cock on his tongue, and Bradley’s fingers move between encouragement and slack desperate nothing on the back of his neck and push him closer to the edge. Bradley manages a stuttered _oh god yes_ before jerking up and coming, and Colin lets his body ride it out before moving away, kissing his hip with an open, frantic mouth. He’s very nearly there too, groans against Bradley’s hipbone before the tautness in his stomach eats his ability to make noise. Bradley’s fingers tangle in his hair, and when they pull just slightly he comes, biting down on the top of Bradley’s thigh and getting a little yelp in return. He collapses against Bradley stomach, breathing hard, darkness behind his eyes, and nothing in his head. He lets out a tiny, pleased murmur that makes Bradley flutter, amused, beneath him, and the words, ‘Fuck, you’re good at that,’ float down through a warm, drowsy haze. Colin smiles lazily and then lets out a breathy snigger, wondering if he should say _thanks_ or _see? Don’t mess with me, Bradley James_ , but unable to form a word, and he stays there for ages, slowly coming down, his stomach thunking with his own pulse. 

When he can move he inches up Bradley’s body. He kisses him, but they’re both too dozy to really do anything with it, so it turns lazy and aimless until Colin drags his lips away. He disentangles himself from his boxers and drops them onto the floor, settles next to Bradley’s shoulder, his face half on him and half buried in the pillow, their arms nestled together, warm and loose and purposeless. 

‘For the record,’ Bradley says, words mumbled together, ‘in case there’s _any_ doubt, I was completely fine with that.’ 

Colin laughs, turns his head to look at him properly. Bradley’s expression in the light from the lamp is soft and definitely surprised. He shifts closer, and his fingers roam over Colin’s shoulder and down his side. He leans in and kisses his forehead, then his nose, reaches for the duvet and drags it up a bit. Colin lets his eyes drift closed and wonders if he really tries, he can turn the lamp off with magic. 

Bradley, apparently, has other things on his mind. He tickles Colin beneath the ear until he opens his eyes again. ‘What?’ he says, trying to bat his hand away with an ineffectual swat. 

Bradley’s gaze is mischievous to the point that it’s actually a bit worrying, and he says, ‘Tell me what it’s like. Having sex _with a man_.’ 

‘Well, you just sort of did it, so – you tell me.’ 

‘You know what I meant.’ 

‘You really want to talk about that?’ 

‘Yeah.’ 

‘ _Now_?’ 

‘You’re dozy and compliant – it’s probably the best time.’ 

Colin sighs a faint grumble and Bradley tickles him again so he inches up onto the pillow, trying to unstick his thoughts and make them rearrange into something sensible. ‘Depends, really. I mean s’like anything, I suppose,’ he says. 

‘That was incoherent, Colin.’ 

‘Well what do you expect?’ Bradley laughs. Colin rolls his eyes into another grumble. ‘If you’re with someone you really like, and he’s really turning you on – and you’re really into the idea of doing it, then it can be – amazing. But if you’re with someone you’re not sure of, or it’s more obligation sex, then the words you’re looking for are _distinctly mediocre_.’ 

‘Who d’you have obligation sex with?’ 

Colin grimaces and Bradley prods him in a way that suggests he won’t give up without an answer, that if he has to he’ll poke a hole right through his shoulder. Colin catches his finger and drags it away, settles his hand between them. 

‘Just – someone I was with for a while. I was – away a lot and I thought that was why things didn’t feel good between us – and then I stopped being away, and I realised that it was more that I didn’t actually like him that much. And I felt really guilty because he’d been waiting for me and – in the end it took me, like, four weeks to chuck him.’ 

‘ _Four weeks_? That’s ridiculous.’ 

‘What’s ridiculous is that even when I thought I’d been clear, he called me the next day to check because he wasn’t sure and he had tickets to something.’ Bradley lets out a full-bodied laugh, and when Colin looks at him his expression is sort of amused but kind, like he thinks it’s endearing. ‘Seriously, however bad you think I am at the getting together part,’ Colin says, ‘I’m _so much worse_ at breaking up. I mean that’s why I could never be friends with someone I used to – I make too much of a show of myself on the way out.’ 

‘Bodes well.’ 

‘See? I told you I was a stupid person to do this with.’ 

‘Maybe,’ Bradley says, ‘but no-one else offered to make me dinner.’ 

‘That’s why you’re here, is it?’ 

‘Of course. It should be perfectly obvious by now that I only want you for your broccoli.’ 

Colin sniggers, shifts a little closer, hugging his pillow with his cheek and toying with Bradley’s hand, letting the pads of his fingers dally on his palm. 

‘It’s different, with men,’ he says quietly. ‘I mean obviously it’s _different_ – but – the first time I did it – I completely freaked out.’ 

He expects Bradley to say, _really? That’s so unlike you Colin_ , all sarcastic and knowing, for himself to retaliate with a shove and a muttered _shut up_ , but instead Bradley just looks at him, gesturing with his eyebrows for him to go on, if he wants. 

‘I picked the wrong person, basically,’ Colin says. ‘He was – older – quite a bit older – and I had this _insane_ crush on him. Looking back he sort of used that and – he wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.’ 

‘Who – ?’ 

‘He was one of my tutors at college. We were doing this play and on the last night there was a party and I had a bit too much to drink and – ended up at his place, _throwing_ myself at him.’ Bradley’s eyes widen and his mouth slackens with questions. ‘Oh, don’t.’ 

‘I didn’t say anything.’ 

‘Didn’t have to. Your eyes are like tabloid headlines. And don’t think I don’t have nightmares about that – that one day my mum’s going ring up, going spare because she’s opened the paper to find _The Night I Had TV’s Merlin On His Knees Against The Coffee Table_ splayed across page nine.’ 

He laughs, even though it’s not really funny, and Bradley inches in and touches his chin, which is strange and yet sort of reassuring. His fingers stay there for a moment, his gaze roaming in a sort of aimless question, and he says, ‘Is that your worst romantic disaster?’ 

‘I’d say it was a fight between that and the night I made a pass at a straight guy in a pub.’ 

‘You made a – ?’ 

‘Honestly it wasn’t my fault,’ Colin says. ‘He was like – _sitcom_ gay – and I hadn’t met anyone at all that I liked in ages, so when I asked him – you know – I thought I was on safe ground. But it turned out he was _engaged_ – and it was his fucking stag do, and the only reason he was talking to me was because he’d mistaken me for his fiancée’s cousin. He got really flustered, went bright red – like redder than I thought it was possible for people to go – in the end it was like being rejected by a huge, stammering tomato.’ Bradley’s laugh is deep and lasting, and Colin grins because he likes this, the way they can shift between _bed_ stuff and this. He’s never had that – it’s always been one or the other. He shuffles into the pillow to hide a little in case Bradley can see it in his eyes. ‘I’m talking too much,’ he says, and looks at Bradley’s hand, where his fingers are sort of loitering with no particular intent. ‘Tell me one of yours? What happened with the girl in the picture?’ 

‘Oh – no – literally _anyone_ but her.’ 

‘What did you do to her?’ 

‘It wasn’t that I _did_ something – well I mean – it was, but – ’ Bradley grimaces and then tries sheepish. ‘She dumped me first.’ 

‘Is this going to be really complicated? Am I going to have to make a chart to keep up?’ 

Bradley pouts at him, and Colin traces the outline of his fingers, wondering when he developed a bit of a thing for Bradley’s hands. 

‘We were together a couple of years ago,’ he says, ‘and she dumped me for _supposedly_ being an immature wanker. And then we ran into each other at a wedding – and she didn’t have a date, and I didn’t like mine much – ’ 

‘Oh my god.’ 

‘ – so we might have _accidentally_ had sex in one of the bridal cars – ’ 

‘Oh my god.’ 

‘ – and then again, later – erm – well, let’s just say I know what it’s like to take a rosebush to the buttocks and that running away from a security guard when you’re carrying a girl in formal wear is trickier than you think.’ Colin stifles his snigger, pressing his lips together. ‘We kind of agreed to give it another go, and it was all fine until I got busy with work – and she met someone else, basically.’ 

‘Why didn’t you want to tell me that?’ 

‘I left out the bad part.’ 

‘Which is?’ 

‘Wounded pride’s a funny thing.’ He rolls his eyes, sighs. ‘I decided that she didn’t feel guilty enough for dumping me and then cheating on me and then dumping me _again_ , so in a fit of – stupidity and – well, _bastardness_ , I decided to get her back. I went round hers really late at night, pretended I’d been going to ask her to marry me and faked bursting into tears. And apparently I was pretty convincing, because she called my bloody _mother_ and told her she was worried I was going to top myself. My mum _still_ won’t let me near the carving knives in case I do something stupid.’ 

‘Why didn’t you tell her the truth?’ 

‘Oh, great idea. Hey mum, the good news is I’m not _actually_ a suicide risk. The bad news is – I _am_ an absolute cock who gets dumped _twice_ by the same girl, and fake cries quite convincingly _for fun_.’ 

Colin presses his face into the pillow, and when he emerges Bradley’s expression is part sheepish and part pleased with himself, like he likes making Colin laugh more than anything. 

‘It’s probably a good job that we’re doing this, then,’ Colin says, gesturing between them. ‘I mean it’s essentially a public service – we’re creating a sort of shield for the rest of the world against _us_. We’re like – a containment unit for relationship fuckery.’ 

Bradley looks at him for ages, and then says, ‘You know the really sad thing, Colin?’ 

‘I don’t – what?’ 

‘That’s probably the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.’ 

Colin laughs, and Bradley adopts a dejected sulk, so Colin says, ‘Do you need a hug now?’ 

‘Even if I do, I’m not likely to get you from you, am I?’ 

‘Don’t be peevish.’ 

‘I don’t know what that means, but I _suspect_ you’re being mean to me.’ 

Colin leans across him to turn off the lamp, and when he settles back he can just make out Bradley’s eyes in the dark, sad and huge like some kind of put-upon cartoon cat. Colin sighs, tuts, then nudges him with his shoulder until Bradley shifts closer, turns and rests his head against his neck. Colin tugs the duvet up around them theatrically, tucks his arm around Bradley’s shoulder and strokes his hair. ‘Better?’ he says. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘I _knew_ you’d be needy.’ 

Bradley sniggers, but he doesn’t move. He’s heavy and warm and makes Colin feel sort of steady, and when his breathing goes quiet and rhythmic, Colin kisses his forehead and thinks something indistinct about Bradley making himself at home, and how little he minds it.


	5. Five

They spend most of Saturday morning in bed, then most of the afternoon sprawled on the sofa, and as it starts to get dark Bradley tells him he’s supposed to be meeting his mates at a pub in Crystal Palace. Colin nods, stays where he is until Bradley says, ‘You’re invited. You know, assuming you’re not sick of me yet.’

Colin mutters, ‘I was sick of you ten minutes after we met,’ but Bradley pulls him to his feet anyway and throws his jacket into his face. 

They have to get the train and it’s raining, and on the way to the station Colin feels nerves start to furl in his stomach. By the time the train pulls in and they find seats they’re full-blown, and he leans against the window. They’ve got a carriage mostly to themselves because anyone with half a brain is heading in the other direction, and Bradley sits opposite him and puts his feet up. Colin watches him faffing with his phone for a minute, sending texts in a flurry of thumbs. He nudges his knee with his and says, ‘You’re not going to say anything, are you?’ 

‘I’m probably going to say _something_ , Colin. Be a long night without any, you know, talking.’ 

‘About – ’ 

He gestures loosely between them, feeling ridiculous, looks out of the window at the dark and the rain as it casts the city into a set piece. In the reflection he can see Bradley frown, but he keeps staring, watching a rain drop as it partially obliterates and races across the pane. 

‘It’d bother you if I did?’ he says, and Colin rolls his eyes, because he’s not sure there’s any response to that. ‘Why?’ When he doesn’t answer Bradley nudges his thigh with his foot, repeatedly knocking into him with increasing force, and when Colin looks at him to glare, Bradley’s grinning. ‘Tell me or I’ll keep doing it.’ 

Against his better judgement, Colin smiles, shaking his head at his own flimsy resolve, because really it’s sort of pathetic that one grin is all it takes for Bradley to get what he wants. He tucks his arms around himself, says, ‘I just – it’s sort of private, you know? People knowing that stuff makes me feel hemmed in.’ 

Bradley murmurs, considering, and after a moment he says, ‘And you don’t think hiding it might make you feel hemmed in too?’ 

‘Don’t bring _logic_ into it,’ he says. Colin tuts at him, works his way down the seat in fake petulance. 

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Colin. Am I not allowed to bring _reasoned thought_ to the party?’ 

‘No, you’re not. If you check your invite, you’ll find it specifically says – black tie optional, agreement with Colin _mandatory_.’ 

Bradley laughs, rests his head back on the seat. Colin traces the muscles in his neck with his gaze, then presses his lips together and switches seats, settling next to him. ‘If this sticks,’ he says, waving between them, ‘you do know that it’s not all going to be, like, sunshine and puppies? I mean on our own it’s one thing – other people is – different. There’s consequences, sometimes – work and family and – ’ 

‘I’m not an idiot.’ Colin hums. His skin feel too tight until Bradley looks at him and says, ‘But – I don’t mind keeping my mouth shut if that’s what you want.’ 

‘It’s just that – I just want to be Colin, you know, without having to explain myself all the time.’ 

Bradley smiles at him, nods, and Colin has that feeling again, like Bradley can see all of him. 

‘For what it’s worth,’ Bradley says, ‘you’re still just Colin to me. In fact – you’re _barely_ Colin. _Not even_ Colin. Most of the time I can’t even remember your name, actually – I just think of you as _that weird kid who plays Merlin and follows me around._ ’ 

Colin fogs the air with a laugh, wondering why it is that sometimes – just sometimes – Bradley finds a way to say _exactly_ the right thing. And it never sounds like the right thing – it never looks like it _should_ be the right thing – and yet it’s usually so esoterically perfect that not only is it right, no-one but him could have said it. 

‘Sometimes you’re pretty cool, you know,’ he says. 

He looks out of the window, and in the reflection he can see Bradley grin. 

_______

When they get in they’re both _wasted_ , and Colin’s bed groans as they fall onto it. Colin shrugs out of his shirt, trying not to lift his head at all to do it, undoes his jeans and kicks them off, not even caring if they make it all the way to the floor. He’s not entirely sure how they got this drunk, only that it had something to do with Bradley’s encyclopaedic knowledge of football coupled with his knowledge of obscure music being a surprisingly winning combination in the pub quiz, and the prize being lots and lots of booze. He looks at Bradley to find him lying on his back with his arms over his eyes, laughs at him while he moans. 

‘Just don’t barf in my bed, Ok?’ 

Colin extends his hand, it feeling strangely disconnected from the rest of him as it ruffles his hair. Bradley lifts his forearm and looks at him from underneath it, his eyes glassy and pointing in slightly different directions. ‘M’friends like you,’ he says. 

‘I like them.’ 

‘I like _you_.’ 

‘Figured that, actually.’ 

‘No, I mean really. _Really_ really.’ 

Colin sniggers and it comes out as more of a disbelieving splutter. ‘You know I’m Dead Kennedys drunk, right?’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Like the song. I’m too drunk to fuck – there’s no point you being nice to me,’ he says. Bradley looks at him, blinks, his forehead contorting into confused shapes. ‘You must have heard it – it’s on _Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death_.’ 

‘I vote death. No, cake.’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Cake or death. No-one ever says death. Everyone wants cake.’ 

‘What are you talking about?’ 

Bradley burbles an answer but Colin can’t make it out beyond a word that might be _wizards_ , and after a moment Bradley gives up with a wave. Colin, murmurs, ‘You’re a lousy drunk.’ Bradley’s reply might be _thanks_ , Colin can’t tell, and he pulls a pillow underneath his head and slumps into it. 

‘S’not what I meant, anyway,’ Bradley says, poking roughly at his arm like it’s vitally important. ‘That’s not why I was being nice.’ 

‘Was it not?’ 

‘Well – s’not that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, ‘cos – ’ 

Bradley trails off into an unintelligible babble, during which he may or may not have used the words _lovely_ and _distinctly fuckable_. Colin laughs at him. 

‘What do you want more?’ he says. ‘Me, or cake, or death?’ 

‘You. Then cake. Then death. Or you _in_ cake and then death.’ 

He adds a groggily empathic nod, and his eyelids flutter closed, and Colin says, ‘Maybe you can have me and cake in the morning. We’ll put off the death, if you don’t mind.’ 

Bradley chuckles messily but apparently can’t form a response, and when Colin falls asleep, it’s with a slightly confused smile, and the thought of Bradley doing weird things to him with icing. 

______

Colin wakes to Bradley kissing his shoulder. It’s hazy and mellow, at first, and he keeps perfectly still, enjoying it like a passenger. Bradley makes his way down his back, following the line of his spine. His stubble is a light graze and makes sensation spark and flare beneath, diffusing until all of him is humming. Colin’s breathing turns unsteady, and when Bradley’s tongue flickers across the dip at the base of his spine he can’t help but squirm and give himself away. Bradley grins against his skin. His fingers clasp Colin’s hip as he moves back up again, torturously slowly, cresting his shoulder and kissing the back of his neck, nibbling his ear. Colin writhes, not sure if he’s trying to get away or closer. 

He murmurs an indistinct _good morning_ , half-remembers their conversation, smiles at the thought of Bradley wanting him more than cake. He inches back against him with a sleepy hum and Bradley’s erection nudges against his arse. 

‘You got anything vital to do today?’ Bradley says. His voice is low and hoarse with sleep, and Colin thinks if he wasn’t already dealing with a hard-on _that would probably do it_. 

‘Not really. Why?’ 

Bradley’s fingers move over his hip and brush his stomach, inching lower, tugging on the hair they find there. His lips hover at Colin’s ear, breathing across it and making him press back until they’re perfectly aligned. 

‘Want to stay here for a bit.’ 

‘Sure,’ Colin says. Bradley’s fingers move over his cock, slow and deliberate, and for a second they steal his ability to speak. ‘But just so you know – um – there’s very little I wouldn’t say yes to when you’re doing that.’ 

He bites his lip, closes his eyes, and behind him Bradley shifts a knee between his. He kisses the nape of his neck with an open mouth, wet and hot, his erection slipping between Colin’s legs. It’s obscenely slow, his fingers ghosting down over Colin’s balls, making his toes curl, and Colin thinks _god, does he have any idea what –_

‘Show me,’ Bradley says, ‘show me what you like. Anything you want.’ 

The words are barely there, make a shiver of absolute _possibility_ traverse him. Desire furls and pings from everywhere Bradley’s touching to everywhere Colin would like him to. The idea of _anything_ and his body _so_ close – he turns his head until he can kiss him. His breath is sour with whatever the hell they were drinking but still he can’t get enough. Bradley kisses him intently, his fingers curling round Colin’s cock like he really, really wants him. And it’s not a vague maybe kind of want, it’s visceral and urgent. Colin licks at Bradley stubble and lets it scrape across his tongue. He thinks he’s going to say something cute and maybe playful about cake or _really, anything?_ He’d intended to take things slowly, give Bradley time to get used to it, to the idea of _him_ , but Bradley’s fingers drag over his cock and make his heart thunk a staccato rhythm and the words _yes_ and _now_ hover on his lips. 

He shifts away a little, opens the drawer where he keeps his supplies. He ferrets out condoms and lube, tosses them onto the duvet, which he thinks makes what he wants pretty clear. He half expects Bradley to change his mind when it’s real and not just suggestion, but he kisses the back of his neck, his shoulder, mouthing some kind of eager, breathy agreement, reaches for the packet. 

When his hands return they’re keen but a bit uncertain, so Colin kisses him again, drawing Bradley’s tongue into his mouth, pressing them together like they’ll never be connected enough. His body hums with anticipation, prickles with impatience, and he pushes his fingers into Bradley’s hair and kisses his jaw. 

‘You done this before? Like, with a girl or something?’ 

‘I’m not sure it’d be very gentlemanly of me to – ’ 

‘I’m going to take that as a yes.’ 

He kisses Bradley’s neck, drawing in the scent of sweet, musky skin, and Bradley goes still. ‘ _For the record_ ,’ he says, ‘it was her idea, and fairly quickly she decided it was a bad one, so – ’ 

Colin meets his eye. Bradley looks away and chuckles sheepishly and somehow it just makes Colin clench with absolute _longing_ for him. He thinks the word for what he does next is probably _accost_ – he covers every inch of Bradley that he can reach with kisses. After a second it turns heavy and hard, and Bradley’s hands are so much more than eager on his body, skimming and mapping his stomach and his thighs his arse and leaving tingles where there was touch. Colin mutters something about thinking it’s a fucking brilliant idea and then runs out of words, his head and his lungs both refusing to function as meant at the thought that they’re really going to do this. 

His heart is kind of skittish, but he takes Bradley’s hand, shows him how to slick his fingers. Bradley’s chest against his back makes his spine tingle – actually – like he can feel it, nerve endings racing to clamour at each other, and he’s _so_ close that Colin feels distracted and fractured and a bit desperate. Bradley kisses his hair and his neck, but his fingers are coy. They hover in the region of his arse until Colin takes them and shows him how to ease them inside. After a moment they get over their shyness and make him gasp, and somewhere beneath it all Colin likes that he’s nervous and hesitant because he’s been with guys who really didn’t care. He murmurs encouragement, shifts back, drawing him deeper, and at first it’s enough and then not nearly. 

He reaches for Bradley’s cock, whispers assurance of _yes_ , and _like that_ as he eases in and _oh fuck_ as he moves, arches back when Bradley gets it _really_ right. He runs his hand down Bradley’s thigh to hold him where he wants him, digs his nails in, and Bradley’s breath on his neck is stuttering and sharp. He can’t think anything but _fuck_. Colin draws his fingers up his body and fists them in his hair, and if Bradley was waiting for a cue to let go apparently that does it. Everything goes blurry and hectic. Bradley’s fingers move down his stomach to touch him, urgent and a bit rough and actually _just so_ , and he lets his head fall against Bradley’s shoulder and makes noises he should probably be embarrassed about. He can’t pick it apart, cause and effect, what’s hands or mouth or cock. Everything disappears into scattered sensation and heavy, fast breath. It’s perilously close to too much and at the same time not enough, and their bodies just go after what they want. 

When he comes it’s with a jerk that’s kind of harsh. Bradley’s rhythm goes to hell, sticky fingers digging into Colin’s hip, and his teeth scraping ineffectually at his shoulder against some gurgled, jagged groan as he follows. He slumps against him, hot and heavy and sweaty, and in the thick, stillness that follows Colin’s heart tries to kick its way out of his chest and he thinks, _oh_ , like that somehow encompasses it. 

It takes a while for his thoughts to gather, and when they eventually do they centre on _we really did fuck_. He’s not sure quite why but he’s sort of surprised. Actually, astounded, because now it’s real. _This_. Him and Bradley, who he still can’t hug. His thoughts make him want to laugh, but he doesn’t, because he’s not sure Bradley’s ego could take it. He goes with a slightly more traditional deep breath and sigh, shifting against Bradley and making his own eyes flutter closed. 

After a moment Bradley eases away. Colin waits for him to finish dealing with the condom, sneaks a look at him to try and read his mind. He half-expects him to run for the door, avoid him for weeks, and rename himself Yeldarb the Viking as a coping mechanism because this is – 

But he doesn’t, he just flops back next to him and stares at the ceiling, and says something that sounds remarkably like, _fucking hell, Colin_. After a moment he looks at him, like he’s never seen him before, or like he has, but it’s always been at a slight squint and now he can see all the details, unblurred. And whatever he sees it makes him smile. Colin rolls his eyes and Bradley props himself up on one elbow and kisses him, long and deep, touching his jaw and letting his tongue taste the Sunday morning in his mouth. It feels like there’s nothing in the world anymore, other than Bradley and the stirring sensation in his stomach, part left over and part new. 

Eventually he eases away, and Bradley traces his nose with his fingertips. It feels sort of strange and he follows Bradley’s fingers with his gaze until he goes cross-eyed. Bradley lets out a breath of amusement. 

‘You know,’ he says, ‘when we met, I thought you might still be a virgin.’ Colin gapes at him, not sure whether to be offended or amused. ‘You never talked about sex and whenever someone did you’d just get really _quiet_ – I actually went through my phone one night, looking for girls I thought might – ’ 

‘If you finish that sentence, I will kill you. I will put a pillow over your face until you stop wriggling, and I will feed your body to stray cats.’ 

Colin dissolves into a laugh, at himself or maybe Bradley, and in the tangled limbs and kisses that follow, he thinks that now they really have done it. Now, whatever happens, _this_ will always be in the air between them, irremovable and permanent and part of who they are to each other. And he’s not sure at all whether to be excited, or scared. 

_____

The next weeks blur as they fall into each other. Bradley starts to smell like Colin’s shower gel, and slowly his clothes move out of his own flat and make themselves at home in Colin’s bedroom. At work they’re careful – or try to be – and if anyone notices that things are slightly different between them it’s not to the point of saying. Colin wonders if there was always some flirtation underpinning everything and he was just too busy doing it to notice, and he supposes that as long as they don’t shag in the middle of the set it doesn’t look like much has changed: Bradley manhandles him occasionally, but then he always did, they share jokes no-one understands, but that’s entirely usual, and they’re always together when they can be, but then they always were. 

When they’re not working they make each other breathless in the dark and swap stories in the night and watch crap movies on the telly so Bradley can make up better ones. Colin keeps waiting for _the moment_ where all his fears manifest but they just don’t, and in their place is a lot of stuff that’s just oddly awesome. The first time Bradley goes down on him he’s all unwitting uncertainty, enthusiasm and spit, and afterwards Colin tells him he has the mouth of a filthy whore. Naturally Bradley takes it as a compliment and an invitation to fake fellate everything he can get his hands on. One day it’s a banana and the next it’s a pen, and Colin ends up pushing him into the toilets and somehow they end up doing it against the sink and telling each other off afterwards. 

They have a lot of conversations, serious and not, some of them both together and inseparable. One day they’re lying in bed and Bradley’s kissing his stomach and Colin says, ‘You know how you said no-one ever says anything romantic to you? I felt bad about that so I wrote you a poem.’ 

Bradley’s eyebrow inches up, amused and intrigued, so he recites it: 

‘There once was a young man named Bradley, When we kissed it was ever so gladly, One day in my bed, end up giving him head, Now he’s telling his friends that he’s had me.’ 

Bradley laughs for nearly five minutes. 

Another day, Bradley’s a bit drunk and he says, ‘Can I tell you something embarrassing?’ 

‘Always.’ 

‘When you were – _away_ – I might have _accidentally_ Googled a picture of you on my phone. And I was – bored, and – ’ 

‘Oh god, tell me you didn’t – ’ 

‘I did.’ 

‘Oh Jesus, was it at least a picture of _me_ and not Merlin?’ 

‘Behind the scenes – _thing_.’ 

‘Oh fucking hell.’ 

‘Don’t knock it. It was definitely one of the top five wanks of my life.’ 

Colin glowers at him, but he doesn’t mean it. Not even a little bit. 

Another day he’s playing with Bradley’s fringe, pushing it in and out of his eyes, trying to decide which he likes best. On impulse he asks something that’s been lurking in his head: 

‘After Angel’s, when I – you know. What did you think?’ 

‘That you’d done something you regretted and you hated me.’ 

He tries to make it a joke but he looks down and toys with a stray thread on Colin’s top, gives himself away. And Colin gets a glimpse of something that he’s probably been trying not to see, that inside, sometimes, Bradley’s much more quiet and much more small than he seems. 

‘I won’t do it again.’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Hurt you.’ 

‘You can’t promise – I mean that’s what people do to each other.’ ‘Not always. Not when they – try. I’ll try. Really.’ 

‘That was almost romantic, Colin.’ 

‘I know. You’re going to have to write _me_ a poem now. Or sing to me.’ 

‘You want me to sing to you?’ 

He does a track from _Space Oddity_ , and it’s Colin who cracks up, because actually, sometimes, Bradley’s weirder than he is, and maybe even weirder than David Bowie. 

By the time they go away to France to film they’re already constants in each other’s lives, and one day Colin looks up and they’ve been together for two months. He wonders how it’s happened, if a part of it is that Bradley does this like he does everything – he goes with the flow and he’s easy and chilled, but when something _matters_ he makes an effort to get it right and just does. 

Being with Bradley, it’s – he’d thought that it’d be different, that things would change, that once they were _having a relationship_ Bradley would turn into someone else. But he hasn’t. He’s still Bradley, and they still have fun and they still make each other crack up, and one day Colin’s eating his lunch, and it occurs to him that they always _had a relationship_ and now they’re just doing what they always did but with added sex. He wants to laugh because it’s so fucking obvious that of course, _being in a relationship with Bradley_ would be exactly like... _being in a relationship with Bradley_. He does laugh, apparently at nothing, and Bradley looks at him and says, ‘Sun made you crazy, Col?’ 

‘I was just thinking about you.’ Bradley’s got a bunch of fake mud on his face, which somehow he makes look sexy, and he meets Colin’s gaze with a pointed _well?_ ‘That mud really brings out the colour of your eyes.’ 

‘You like it when I’m dirty, Colin?’ 

Colin laughs, and Bradley holds it for a second and then he’s laughing too, and they must have had a hundred conversations exactly like it, but they still make Colin’s insides fizz, contribute to this _feeling_ in his innards that against the odds, and stupid as this might be, it’s actually going really well. 

The days slip by. Some of them are exhausting, the kind where at the end of them all they can do is fall into bed and lazily groan, more are the kind they know they’ll always remember, and others just sit somewhere in the middle, indistinct but peppered with these tiny moments of significance. 

On one of those middling days they’re on the bed and he’s lying with his head on Bradley’s stomach, listening to his dinner rearrange itself, tracing the hem of his shirt with his fingertips and wondering why – however often he gets Bradley naked – he never gets any less fascinated with his skin. They’re supposed to be going to a bar with everyone but they’re trying to put off the moment when they have to get up and leave. He draws in a deep breath, and says, ‘You smell like horses.’ 

‘Sorry.’ 

‘Actually I sort of like it.’ 

‘Weirdo,’ Bradley murmurs, and pushes his fingers into his hair in some kind of admonishment that turns into affection. ‘If you dump me for one of the horses, I’m going to be miffed.’ 

‘Oh well I wouldn’t want to _miff_ you. Maybe we’ll just have an affair, keep it quiet. There’ll be recrimination in the stables and you’ll know I’m up to something because I’ll taste like sugar lumps, but you won’t want to force the issue in case I pick the horse over you. Eventually, though, you can’t take it, and we have a horrible row and you end up on a daytime TV show called _My Boyfriend Left Me For A Horse_ , crying ‘til you snot everywhere.’ 

He looks up and Bradley peers at him and says, ‘I suppose you think that’s endearing? The way you concoct these stories out of _nowhere_.’ 

‘Little bit, yeah.’ 

Bradley laughs, and Colin can feel it through his chin, which is appealing and he’s not entirely sure why. ‘Wh’happens next? Do you and the horse get married?’ 

‘Naturally. You crash the thing – run in when the vicar asks about lawful impediments but it’s too late because I already put the ring on his hoof. We get a spread in _Pony Fancier’s Monthly_.’ 

He goes back to listening to the inner workings of Bradley’s stomach, and Bradley’s fingers tickle the back of his neck. ‘Don’t think I didn’t notice you using the b word, by the way.’ 

‘What b word?’ 

Bradley lifts an eyebrow, and Colin goes back over what he said until his mind snags on _boyfriend_. 

‘Oh,’ he says, and Bradley smiles, fingers turning encouraging on the back of Colin’s neck. He inches up his body and settles on Bradley’s chest, avoiding his gaze and probably fourteen different shades of red. ‘Can we pretend I didn’t say that?’ 

‘What’s the alternative? I’d say _boyfriend_ was the lesser evil, personally. I mean there’s _my lover, Bradley_. _Bradley, my containment unit. Bradley, who I’m going to leave for a horse_. I mean if you’d rather go with one of those – ’ 

Colin lifts Bradley’s chin into a kiss, and as Bradley’s mouth opens under his he thinks that it’s a bit like sinking into something warm, and soft and squidgy. He smiles against Bradley’s lips and reaches between them to ruck Bradley’s shirt up, tugs it over his head and kisses his shoulder, his neck, finding all the places he knows make little sighs erupt from Bradley’s throat. ‘We’re going to be late,’ Bradley murmurs. 

‘Well then it won’t matter if we’re _later_.’ 

Colin carries on making his way down Bradley’s chest, undoing his belt as he goes, and Bradley laughs. ‘And you always had such lovely manners. You never used to be late for anything.’ 

‘I told you. You’re a bad influence. You’ve lead me astray.’ 

‘This morning I had to get make-up to cover up a lovebite on my chest, and _I’m_ the bad influence?’ 

‘Uh huh,’ Colin murmurs, ‘that’s why I’m going to leave you for a horse.’ 

When they eventually make it to the bar they’re _very_ late. Anthony is already pissed and talking to Richard about _the good old days_ , setting himself up as some old thesp when they all know that really, he’s cooler than all of them. They sit down and find the wine. Bradley’s knee presses against his under the table, constant and warm and _his_. Colin’s surprised how much he likes it, the idea that he has some sort of claim on Bradley, and as they drink and talk to other people he knows that really, they’re both just thinking about their knees. 

The next day he has an interview, the kind that springs up and surprises him even though he knows it’s coming. He gives all his usual answers, calls things _brilliant_ and _exciting_ , smiles a lot because he means it all, and everything is great until the interviewer asks if he can describe the rest of the cast in one word. He does fine with Richard, Katie and Angel – calls them mischievous, hard-working and friendly in turn, and then the word _Bradley_ makes his heart stutter and his thoughts whirl. He knows he can’t give it too much thought because that’ll draw attention, but there isn’t a word that really applies to Bradley anymore because he’s turned into a feeling, like cellular smiling. He goes with ‘ – trouble,’ and second-guesses it all the way back to catering. 

There, he finds Bradley fanning himself with a newspaper, picking at something that looks a bit like couscous and sweating in his armour. He sinks down next to him and puts his head on the table. 

‘You all right?’ 

Colin murmurs the word _interview_ and Bradley says, ‘Oh. Yeah, me too. Later.’ 

‘Watch out for the one-word answer thing. I hate those.’ 

‘You out yourself as a sociopath again?’ 

‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘I told her you were _trouble_.’ 

Bradley laughs, throwing his head right back, and Colin looks up at him from behind his neckerchief. 

‘So I’m going to have to describe you in a word, am I?’ Bradley says. 

‘Hmm.’ 

‘You’ll kill me if I say _sexy_ , won’t you?’ 

‘Several times, in increasingly violent ways.’ 

‘How about if I say _perky_?’ 

‘ _Perky_? That’s – ’ He tuts. ‘I’m not _perky_.’ 

‘Yes you are. This morning when you brought me coffee that perked me right up.’ 

Colin avoids his eyes, because he suspects it was less the coffee and more the blowjob in the shower. ‘Well – if you tell her about _that_ , you will be in trouble,’ he mutters. Bradley throws a forkful of couscous at him. 

_____

It takes Colin a while to realise that it’s happened, because it hides in a hundred different things. But when he does he’s in his hotel room. He’s almost asleep, stirs as Bradley slips through the door and sheds his clothes. Bradley curls around him, murmuring apologies for waking him, his fingers tracing soothing circles on his side. He whispers something about it taking him a while to evade Anthony because when they finally finished the scene they _might_ have got a bit pissed on red wine. Colin smiles and shifts back into him and thinks something indistinct like _I’m glad you’re home_. 

And they’re not home, because a hotel is never that, and he realises that that’s not it, that it’s nothing to do with the room and their tangled things, that at some point he started to think of _them_ as home. It wakes him up entirely, like his whole body is startled by it, and he turns round and looks at Bradley in the dark. And he just smiles, sort of slow and sleepy, traces Colin’s temple and the line of his hair with a fingertip _hello_. 

Colin fits their mouths together. Bradley’s is sour and smiley and drunk, and Colin thinks that it’s been there for a while, the way they can be anywhere and it doesn’t matter as long as they’re within reach. And he wants to say _I love you_ , but instead he kisses Bradley harder, tries to push the words onto his lips with his tongue. Bradley presses back, fingers working down Colin’s spine, and Colin thinks: 

_If you leave me, I don’t think I’m getting up from that._

And he’s so scared that he starts to shake, just slightly, but Bradley’s close enough to tell. So he pretends that he’s cold, and Bradley pulls him closer and kisses him again, murmurs something predictable about warming him up. And as he wraps his legs around Bradley’s waist and Bradley moves inside him he thinks about love, and custard, and if it’s possible to drown in something that’s supposed to look like cartoon sunshine. 

_____

The next day he’s _thoughtful_ , apparently, but what he’s always liked about acting is that if he’s quiet or lost in his thoughts people tend to assume it’s all job-related and leave him alone. Sometimes that’s a good thing. He likes the space and the time and the gap between him and the world where he can exist for a while and figure things out. And sometimes being alone with his thoughts just tends to make them race around his head like greyhounds – aimless but fast, never quite catching what they’re chasing. 

Today’s definitely the latter kind. Bradley’s off filming in another part of the castle but he’s everywhere in Colin’s head. Colin keeps returning to it like a riff, if love’s even something Bradley’s looking for from him, if he even wants that to be a possibility. He can’t find the answer, because Bradley’s affectionate, and he’s not beyond gestures – sometimes if he’s getting up first he leaves Colin a good morning note and once he wrote him a really filthy limerick – but Colin’s not sure whether that’s just who he is, if he’d be like that with anyone. And Bradley’s _so_ much more fearless than him, about everything, that Colin’s sure that if he felt it too, he’d have said, wouldn’t have been able to help himself. 

He starts to picture it, to picture himself making some declaration – and he starts to think, _yeah, this is definitely how I fuck it up. I say something stupid and he doesn’t feel it too and he leaves because he doesn’t think he can stay when we’re not in the same place_ – and by dinner time he’s so unsettled that just the thought of eating makes him almost throw up. 

It’s late by the time he’s finished for the day, and he’s on his way to change out of his costume when he sees Bradley in his dressing room. He hesitates, not wanting to see him until he’s figured it all out in his head, but Bradley’s perched on the edge of the shelf, clutching an ice pack to his elbow and wincing as he moves it experimentally. 

‘What did you do to yourself?’ 

Bradley looks up as he eases through the door. He has shadows beneath his eyes and he’s obviously dog-tired, but he smiles anyway and says, ‘Just hurt my elbow. It’s nothing.’ 

Colin goes over, and Bradley lets him peel the ice pack away gingerly. It’s bleeding a bit and impressively red and swollen, and he touches Bradley’s arm, careful to avoid hurting him, like he can soothe it with his fingers. ‘Oh, that’s – ’ 

‘It’s fine, Colin.’ 

‘It’s not _fine_ , it’s devoid of skin and twice the size it should be. What happened?’ 

‘You know the gargoyles?’ Colin nods. ‘I kind of – elbowed one in the face. I wouldn’t say I recommend it. And arguably this was the highlight of my day so don’t even ask about the rest.’ 

Colin sighs at him and Bradley makes a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful effort to laugh. All of the things Colin’s been thinking tug at him at once, like they have his insides on some kind of pulley system. He tuts at him affectionately and shifts closer, pushing his hair back from his face, running his fingers from there to his shoulder, lightly drawing him in and fitting them together. Bradley drapes his uninjured arm around Colin’s waist and rests his forehead against his neck. Colin can feel him relaxing, and he rubs his hands up and down his back, murmuring something that’s not quite a word, thinking endearments and wondering if he should let them out of his mouth. 

They stay like that for a moment, just breathing against each other, and then Bradley says, ‘Normally you hate hugging.’ 

‘But I like you,’ Colin says quietly. ‘And you needed one.’ 

‘Are you psychic?’ Bradley says, and his grip tightens a little. 

‘What?’ 

‘When I was sitting here before, I was being really pathetic and thinking _I wish Colin was here_. And then – there you were.’ 

He chuckles a little at himself, reaches for his icepack and winces as he reapplies it, and Colin pushes his hair out of his eyes again and says, ‘It’s part of my method magic.’ 

‘Can you heal me, then? I’ve got another sword fight tomorrow and this is going to be murder.’ 

He offers up his arm with mock hopefulness, and Colin smiles at him. ‘If you give me a minute to get changed,’ he says, ‘we can go back together, and I’ll find you some painkillers and maybe something alcoholic you’re not supposed to mix with them – and that’ll make you eight miles high, and that’s _very nearly_ the same as magic.’ 

Bradley murmurs amusement, and on impulse, even though they have a strict no kissing where other people might see rule, Colin leans in and presses his lips lightly to Bradley’s forehead. 

‘I’ll be as quick as I can, Ok?’ he says, and goes to get changed. 

When they get back to the hotel he begs a bottle of whiskey from Anthony that he’s keeping _for emergencies_ , and Bradley manages two glasses before they hit the painkillers in his system and he falls asleep on Colin’s shoulder. 

Colin sits there for ages, flicking through channels on the TV with the sound on mute, meaningless French subtitles flickering on the screen because he doesn’t want to disturb him. 

Eventually, in the quiet, with Bradley snoring lightly and him smiling at the sound, it dawns on Colin that love’s nothing to be scared of, because really it’s just _this_. And it exists, without him saying it, in everything they do. It’s like custard: ordinary, but no less sweet or exciting for being so. 

_____

‘I can’t – believe you’ve – never been up here,’ Bradley says. 

It takes Colin five minutes to catch him up, and when he does there are stars in his eyes for all the wrong reasons and his breath is trying to choke him. He leans on the stonework – the word for which he thinks might be _rampart_ – struggling to stay upright, and wind whips around him and makes his skin chill into goosebumps. He’s no idea what they’re doing here, only that Bradley insisted that before they left they should climb to the top of the castle together, and Colin – mug-like and ill-armed with too little coffee – had agreed. 

‘Wh – what – ’ 

He can’t make a whole sentence, and Bradley leans next to him, grinning at him and then the view, his breath barely disturbed by the exertion of the climb. 

When Colin’s heart has stopped trying to claw its way out of his body like something in a sci-fi film, he looks out. The castle _is_ pretty impressive from up here, sprawling beneath them like it’s not actually real. Beyond that the sky rolls like a thick, grey duvet, and he looks out, wondering if Bradley’s going to say something about them being kings of the world. 

‘It’s – yeah, pretty,’ he says. 

‘Worth the climb?’ 

‘I wouldn’t say so,’ Colin says. ‘Next time just, like, take a picture with your phone and show me?’ 

Bradley laughs, inches closer, toying with the hem of his top. 

‘I wanted to show you _in person_.’ 

‘Oh, I see,’ Colin says. ‘You brought me up here to shag, didn’t you?’ 

‘I did not.’ 

‘So if I go through your pockets there won’t be a condom in them somewhere?’ 

‘Well – that’s – be prepared, Colin.’ 

‘You learn that on Ray Mears, did you?’ 

Bradley grins and looks away, biting at his lip. ‘Actually I did have a nefarious purpose.’ 

‘I’m _shocked_.’ 

Bradley sinks down behind the wall, the wind ruffling at his hair. And Colin’s sort of knackered so he goes with it, sitting down next to him, resting his shoulders against the stone. 

‘D’you ever go to Shakespeare’s house in Stratford?’ Bradley says. 

‘I didn’t.’ 

‘Well – there, they’ve got this window, where all these famous writers – Tennyson and Tolkien and – people – scratched their names. I thought we should leave ours here.’ 

‘You think we should vandalise the castle? With _our own names_?’ 

‘It’s – for posterity. And it’s not _vandalism_ if Tennyson did it first.’ 

‘Do you even know who Tennyson is?’ 

‘ _No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself_.’ 

‘Wow. That’s – you do that for your GCSEs or something?’ 

‘Yeah.’ Sniggering, Bradley roots in his pockets, pulls out a coin and holds it out to him. Colin rolls his eyes but takes it anyway, watches as Bradley works a B into the stone with a fifty euro cent. ‘I just thought it’d be nice to know our names are always here.’ 

And Colin thinks, _yeah, that would be sort of nice, actually_ , and so he etches his in too, low down on the wall, barely visible, on an adjacent stone. It takes ages, and when he’s done he can barely read his own writing, which he supposes is for the best. He runs his finger over it, feeling the curves of his own name, grooved and permanent. 

‘You’re _such_ a bad influence.’ 

‘You love me anyway.’ 

Colin looks up abruptly. Bradley’s gaze is waiting, and his expression is brazen and sheepish at the same time, shy and certain in some combination that shouldn’t be able to exist together, but he’s made sort of his own. Colin swallows. It proves an ineffective defence against the stammering of his heart, and so he says, ‘Do I? You’re sure of that?’ 

‘Wishful thinking, maybe.’ 

Bradley looks down, rolls the coin he’s clinging to across the backs of his fingers. Colin watches it go back and forth twice, thinking, trying to grasp the consequences of a confirmation or denial. It exists between them, this _thing_ , he knows, but – out loud things have more – well, he’s more prone to freaking out when things are more than quietly there. 

But it’s _Bradley_. Bradley who wished he was there when he was hurt. Bradley who sneaks up behind him and puts his chin on his shoulder because that’s not a hug so he can’t object. Bradley who he irrationally thinks of as home. Bradley who he absolutely cannot imagine being without. 

Colin stills his fingers, holds them and says, ‘It’s not, actually. For the record, you make me feel like I’ve fallen into custard.’ 

Bradley’s forehead puckers but he grins, like he has no idea what the words mean but he can feel the sentiment, and Colin shuffles forward, takes his face in his hand and kisses him. 

Somewhere above, there’s a rumble of thunder and it starts to rain. Colin presses him back against the stone, and they utterly don’t care. 

_____

‘I can’t believe you still have this on your iPod.’ 

‘You chose some good stuff. I mean I appreciate it was more luck than you developing good taste, but still. Seemed a shame to delete the evidence.’ 

Bradley pokes him in the side and Colin laughs, sticks his earphone in as Bradley hits play on his _Half-Inched by Bradley_ playlist. They’re on their way back to England, the train idling in the station, them sitting together with damp hair and sly smiles and newly-changed clothes. Everyone else is collapsed on the windows and chatting lazily in a way that suggests within an hour they’ll all be lost to dreams, and Colin settles back and just enjoys it. The tracks are familiar enough that he doesn’t have to concentrate to hear them, and he wonders if he should confess _why_ he kept it, that sometimes he’d listen to it just to feel closer, that sometimes it was agony as much as comfort. He decides against it, because sometimes he doesn’t even really want to let on that he remembers any of that, would prefer to pretend it was always like this between them, that they slipped from friends to what they are now with no awkward, painful, transition in the middle. 

He closes his eyes and sinks back in his seat, thinking about their morning, how he’ll never be able to look at that part of the castle again without thinking of Bradley pushing his sopping fringe out of his face and whispering in his ear. He replays dragging his tongue through the rain on Bradley’s skin, the contrast of the cold and his warm, heavy breath. 

He’s not aware of falling asleep, but at some point he must because he wakes up, inching into consciousness with a vague, sleepy murmur. He presses his face into the soft familiarity of the t shirt beneath his cheek, seeks out Bradley’s leg with his hand – 

And then remembers that they’re not _actually_ in bed but on a train, and that means he’s fallen asleep _on_ Bradley, _in_ public. 

He sits up, too startled to think anything other than _fuck, how long have I been there?_ and _oh god_ , and he looks around. Katie’s in the seat in front and awake but reading – or maybe pretending to be reading, and he can hear the blip of Anthony’s DS and someone chatting. He looks at Bradley, mouths _sorry_ , winces. Bradley sniggers at him and rolls his eyes, his gaze resting on Colin’s – presumably amusingly erratic – hair. Colin leans in a bit and whispers, ‘Did anyone – ?’ 

Before he can answer they go into a tunnel, and in the black Colin can see his own reflection in the window. His hair _is_ impressively erratic and beneath it he looks pained and a bit shocked – and when they emerge back into daylight Bradley’s sort of caught between grinning and frowning. 

‘I don’t mind if people know,’ he says, quietly enough that Colin’s practically has to lip-read it. ‘But I mean I _do_ get it – ’ 

‘Get what?’ 

‘That it’s different for you.’ 

Colin looks at him, questioning, and Bradley smiles and says, ‘Well, I get to say, _I’m in love with Colin_ and people’ll say, _oh that’s great. He’s so great. Good for you._ Whereas you have to _confess_ that you’re in love with me. And people’ll look at you like you’ve adopted a dog with wheels for legs, like they know what you’re doing is in some way noble, but still, secretly they think you could do better and you should get a real pet.’ 

Colin laughs, looks away at the trees as they blur into green and black nothing, letting the words settle in his head. 

_I’m in love with Colin._

‘You’re not a dog on wheels,’ he says. Bradley makes a squeaking noise like an unoiled cog, and in the reflection Colin can see him miming dragging himself across the floor, which makes him laugh again, give in to the urge to look at him. ‘Seriously? You think I think of you like that?’ 

‘I’ve no illusions about who I am. I mean need I remind you that I recently lost a battle of wits _with a wall_.’ 

Bradley widens his eyes for effect. But Colin doesn’t think it’s funny. He wants Bradley to know – unavoidably and whatever happens – that he’s so much more than what he thinks. The impulse to kiss him tugs, unavoidably, on Colin’s insides. And it’s eleven kinds of stupid to out them for the sake of a snog, but – 

‘Oh hell,’ he mutters, and leans in. 

He intends fleeting, maybe, but when Bradley’s lips respond he can’t help it, and he cups his jaw and pulls him closer. He knows that to anyone watching – which he suspects may well be everyone who’s awake – it’ll be obvious that it’s not them larking about or some kind of joke, because it’s a proper kiss, a lover’s kiss, open mouths and familiar tongues – and that’s _so many_ kinds of stupid, but – 

He pulls back a little, and he can feel eyes, wide and startled, in his direction. Anthony says _get in there, my son_ , Katie sniggers the word _busted_ , and he can hear Angel giving off little puffing giggles that suggest she might be fanning herself theatrically with her hand. Colin does the only thing he can think of, which is to bury his face behind Bradley’s shoulder and sort of hide between him and the seat, and Bradley inches in front of him and says, really loudly, ‘There’s nothing to see here, people, move along.’ 

That gets a laugh, and when Colin peeks out from behind his shoulder, Katie’s already gone back to her book and Anthony to his DS, and everyone’s wearing a sort of knowing smile but no-one looks horrified. Colin looks at Bradley, whose face is a bit red, his expression halfway between fraught and amused, like he’s waiting for a cue for which one to go with. Colin says the only thing he can think of that’s equal to what he just did, the only thing that’s equal to the way he’s _always_ prepared to be fearless, just so other people can be scared. 

‘I panicked.’ 

‘What?’ 

‘When I kept running away. And it was because you’re you.’ 

Colin’s not at all sure he can explain it right, because it’s not even that clear in his head, but he carries on talking, anyway. ‘Normally I keep it all separate – there’s the people I have sex with and the people I’m mates with and the people I like working with – but you? You’re all of that – and that makes you sort of everything. And that was – I _panicked_.’ 

Colin rolls his eyes to try and distil the thudding of his heart. For a moment he thinks he’s made a hideous mistake because Bradley doesn’t say anything, and so he just stares at his hands with his heart trying to kick its way out of his chest. 

‘You can be really dense sometimes, Colin.’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Could you not have just said? I would have been _the king_ of understanding that.’ 

‘Well I know that _now_. I mean when we – you know – on the sofa – ’ Bradley winces and shoots glance in Angel’s direction, mutters something about them both sending apology flowers for that at some point. ‘ – it took me by surprise.’ 

‘That’s what makes you dense. I mean do you have _any_ idea how long before that I’d wanted – ’ 

‘What?’ 

‘You remember Ashley Bannister?’ Colin nods. ‘Well – he was _nothing_ compared to you. I lost months, Colin. _Months_ to – hinting – and angsting – and trying to figure out if you would ever be – _onside_ , I think was your expression – ’ 

‘Why didn’t you say something?’ 

‘Oh, why didn’t _I_ say something? Because that wouldn’t have been awkward at all. Lovely day, Colin. And I know you can’t even stand to hug me but – by the way, I think I’m developing a really alarming crush on you. Any chance you fancy going out or shall I just go and boil my head?’ 

‘You think your crush on me is alarming?’ 

‘You want to have sex in spaghetti and fall into custard, Colin. Everything about you is alarming.’ 

Bradley lets out a sigh of impressive fake annoyance, and Colin laughs. Bradley manages to hold his strop for a moment, and then it disappears with a roll of his eyes. Colin helps it along by reaching for his hand. He squashes his fingers into the spaces between Bradley’s, presses their palms together. Bradley keeps their fingers locked but lifts his arm over Colin’s head and pulls him in, rests their hands on his chest. He’s comfy and warm and Colin sinks into him, and there’s lots of things that he could say, profound things and sweet things and apologetic things, but instead he goes with, ‘You know why I never did it? The spaghetti thing?’ 

‘Because even revealing you’ve thought about it makes you sound like a sociopath?’ 

‘It does not.’ 

Bradley murmurs disagreement, and Colin shifts against him irritably until Bradley scuffs the back of his hand with his thumb to appease him. 

‘It’s logistics,’ Colin says. ‘I mean a bath of spaghetti – that’s _a lot_ of spaghetti. So I’d have to go the supermarket and buy pretty much a trolley full of spaghetti. And they might not even stock it in a large enough quantity so I’d maybe have to go back a couple of days in a row – and then I’m the guy who eats nothing but spaghetti _at best_ , and at worst they think I’m one of those people who’s stockpiling for an apocalypse.’ 

‘You’ve put a worrying amount of thought into this.’ 

‘And acquisition’s not the only problem. Once I’ve bought it, I’ve got to cook it, and I don’t have a pan _that_ big, so how do I keep it warm? And then _say_ I find a way around that, there’s disposal afterwards – I’m not going to want to eat it, but I’d be left with bin bags and bin bags just _full_ of spaghetti – and I mean my neighbours already think I’m strange so how do I dispose of them? I mean the logical thing to do would be to take them to the river or something, but one – I don’t drive so I’d have to get a cab, and two – what if I get caught chucking them in and someone thinks they’re body parts? And then I have to say – _no, I’m not a serial killer, I just wanted to have sex in a bath of warm spaghetti_ , which is arguably worse. In the end I just decided it was more trouble than it was worth.’ 

Bradley breathes against his ear, and mutters, ‘Weirdo.’ 

‘Don’t lie. You’d be into it if I asked you to get in with me.’ 

‘Oh, would I?’ 

‘Yeah, you would.’ 

‘You think you know me well enough to ascertain my food sex preferences?’ 

‘I do.’ 

‘That’s presumptuous.’ 

‘You’re in denial.’ 

Bradley’s chest vibrates with laughter, and he says, ‘Tell me about falling into custard?’ 

‘Oh, well that’s a really long story.’ 

‘It’s a really long journey.’ 

‘That’s a fair point.’ Colin makes himself comfy, for show, because Bradley’s chest is pretty much his favourite place to be. ‘Ok. It sort of starts with this guy who thinks electricity is a hoax, and he meets this other guy who convinces him that the _ding_ of a microwave is the sound of intergalactic space travel. And at first they don’t really like each other, but slowly – if not exactly surely – ’ 

_They fall in love._

And it’s not always sweet, and it’s not always comforting, and sometimes it leaves them both feeling dented and bruised, like they’ve walked into something they should have avoided. 

But still. Somewhere on the wall of a castle in France, their names are etched in stone and joined together with an _and_. 

And sometimes, just _sometimes_ , everything between them is the colour of cartoon sunshine.


End file.
